What is inside delivery?

Standard commercial freight delivery ends at the threshold: the driver delivers to your receiving dock, or grounds the skid at the door with a tailgate. Inside delivery goes further — the driver brings the freight into the building, to a suite, a storeroom, or a designated spot on the floor. It sounds like a small distinction. Operationally, it’s a meaningful one, because moving freight through a building involves doorways, floors, elevators and time that the standard delivery doesn’t.

The honest headline for shippers: inside delivery is a real and commonly arranged service, but what’s possible depends entirely on the freight and the building, and what’s included varies by carrier. It’s a detail to settle when you request your quote — never an assumption to make on delivery day.

Where standard delivery ends and inside begins

Freight service is priced around a defined handoff point. For dock-to-dock delivery, that point is your receiving dock. For a location without a dock, it’s typically the ground beside the truck or the entrance, with the skid lowered by tailgate.

Inside delivery moves the handoff point into the building. Typical requests:

• A skid of stock brought into a storefront’s back room rather than left at the receiving door
• Equipment delivered to a specific suite in an office or medical building
• Cartons carried into a workshop that fronts directly onto a parking lot
• Materials positioned in a specific area of an open commercial unit

Because the request adds handling time and sometimes equipment, it’s part of the shipment’s specification — like a tailgate or a second delivery stop — not a courtesy negotiated with the driver on arrival.

What inside delivery typically involves

At ground level, with clear access, inside delivery is usually a pallet jack job: the skid comes off the truck, rolls through a suitable doorway, and is positioned where the receiver needs it. (For what a pallet jack can and can’t do compared to a forklift, see our forklift vs pallet jack guide.) Several conditions need to line up:

• Doorway clearance. A standard 48″ × 40″ skid, plus the jack, needs a wide, unobstructed path. Single pedestrian doors often don’t cut it.
• Floor surface. Pallet jacks need firm, smooth, level flooring. Gravel, deep thresholds or steps stop them cold.
• Elevators, if floors are involved. The elevator has to fit the skid and bear the weight — freight elevators usually do, passenger elevators often don’t.
• A clear destination. Someone on site who can say where the freight goes, with the path actually clear when the truck arrives.

Where the full skid can’t travel inside, the practical fallback is often breaking it down — carrying cartons in by hand while the pallet stays at the truck. Whether that’s workable depends on the piece count, the weight and the time it takes, which is exactly why it needs to be discussed in advance.

The practical limits

Inside delivery has boundaries worth knowing before you ask for it:

• Stairs are the hard stop. Pallet jacks don’t climb. An upper or lower floor without an adequate elevator means hand-carrying or specialized equipment.
• Weight limits change indoors. A skid a tailgate can ground may still be more than can be safely moved across a finished floor or into an elevator.
• Fragile and heavy don’t mix with improvisation. Sensitive equipment being moved through a building deserves a plan — protective wrap, a clear path, the right hands. Our fragile equipment shipping guide covers preparing that kind of freight.
• Some jobs are movers’ jobs. Rigging a machine into position, navigating tight interior corridors with very heavy pieces, or dismantling doorframes is beyond freight delivery of any kind. A good carrier will say so rather than attempt it.

Confirm the arrangement at quote time

Because buildings vary so much, no carrier can promise inside delivery sight unseen — and you should be wary of one that does. What makes it work is information up front. When you request your quote, describe the destination: ground floor or upper, doorway and path, elevator if relevant, floor surface, and where the freight ultimately needs to sit. With that picture, the carrier can confirm what’s achievable, assign the right vehicle and equipment, and price the stop honestly — the same conversation covered in what happens at the receiving end of any commercial delivery.

At Sonic Transport, skids and pallets are the heart of what we move across the GTA and Southern Ontario — roughly 60% of our deliveries involve them — and delivery arrangements are settled shipment by shipment as part of our skid and pallet service. If your freight needs to end up somewhere more specific than the door, describe the delivery in your quote request and we’ll confirm exactly what we can do before the truck rolls.