How do I book my first shipment with a courier?

Booking a first shipment with a commercial courier is a short process, and almost everything that makes it go smoothly happens before you ever contact the carrier. Gather the right details, submit them through the quote form, confirm the arrangements, and have the freight ready. Here’s each step the way it actually works.

Step 1 — gather the five details every carrier needs

A courier prices and plans a shipment from the same handful of facts every time. Have these ready and the rest of the process is quick:

1. Pickup and delivery addresses — full street addresses, plus anything unusual about access: a plaza unit around the back, a dock off a side street, a site gate that needs a call-ahead.
2. Dimensions — length, width and height of each piece or skid, in inches. Measure the real outer envelope, including anything that sticks out. If you’re not sure how, our guide to measuring freight dimensions and weight shows the right way.
3. Weight — total, and per piece if there are several. Weight decides the vehicle, and the vehicle decides a lot of the price.
4. Loading at both ends — does each location have a shipping dock or a forklift? If either end has neither, the shipment needs a truck with a tailgate (lift-gate), and the carrier needs to know that at booking, not on arrival.
5. Timing — when is the freight ready, and when does it need to arrive? “Ready at 1 PM, needed today” and “any time tomorrow” are different services at different prices.

One more thing worth deciding up front: a contact name and phone number at each end. Drivers solve small problems on the spot when they can reach a human at the destination.

Step 2 — request the quote

Submit the details through the carrier’s quote form. Be complete rather than brief — every gap in the information becomes a follow-up question, and every follow-up question adds a round trip before you have a price. Mention the awkward stuff explicitly: no dock at delivery, freight that’s fragile, a receiver that closes at 4, a skid that’s heavier than it looks.

From there, a person at the carrier reviews the shipment, matches it to a vehicle and service level, and comes back with a price. We’ve written up what happens after you request a freight quote in detail — the short version is that complete information in means a fast, accurate price out.

Step 3 — confirm the booking

When the quote comes back, confirm three things before you accept:

• The service level matches your deadline. Same-day direct, rush, and next-business-day are different commitments. If the quote assumes tomorrow and you meant today, say so now.
• The equipment matches the freight. If you flagged a no-dock delivery, the confirmation should reflect a tailgate truck. If anything about the freight changed since you asked — more pieces, more weight — update the carrier before pickup, because the price and the vehicle are based on what you described.
• The pickup window works. Make sure someone at your end will be present, and that the freight will actually be ready inside the window you agree to.

Once you accept, the shipment is scheduled and a vehicle is assigned. For a first shipment, this is also the natural moment to ask how the carrier handles proof of delivery and updates, so you know what closing out looks like. If you expect to ship regularly, it’s worth reading about how courier account onboarding works — regular shippers get faster booking because the carrier already knows their locations.

Step 4 — have the freight ready for pickup

Everything on pickup day flows from one word: ready. That means packed, labelled, staged near the loading point, and accompanied by whatever paperwork the shipment needs. In practice:

• Boxes sealed, skids stretch-wrapped, nothing loose that could shift.
• Each piece labelled with the destination company, address and contact.
• The freight staged where it can be loaded — at the dock, or somewhere a tailgate truck can access if there’s no dock.
• Your team told a driver is coming, so nobody sends them away or makes them wait.

The full rundown is in our freight-ready checklist for pickup day. When the driver arrives, the freight is loaded, the paperwork is signed, and the run begins — here’s how a freight pickup actually works if you want to see that part step by step.

Step 5 — delivery and close-out

At the destination, the receiver checks the freight and signs for it, and that signature becomes your proof of delivery. A good carrier closes the loop back to you so you know the shipment landed. That’s the whole cycle — and the second shipment is easier than the first, because now both you and the carrier know the lane.

If your first shipment is coming up, Sonic Transport runs same-day direct service across the GTA, Golden Horseshoe and Southern Ontario, strictly for businesses. Send us the five details above and a real person — not a call centre — will price the run and get the right vehicle on it.