LTL carriers told investors last week they are pushing prices up again, with Saia renewing contracts 10.8% higher and Old Dominion lifting yield 5.1% excluding fuel.
If you sell furniture, fitness equipment, powersports gear or anything else that ships on a pallet, this is your 2027 freight budget talking. For an Ecommerce Paradise reader running a high-ticket store, every LTL increase either lands on the customer at checkout or comes out of your margin, and three major LTL carriers just said on earnings calls which way they expect it to go.
Below are the numbers from XPO, Saia and Old Dominion, why they are pushing, where the evidence says demand is soft enough for you to push back, what it does to a store’s math, and five moves for this week. If you are new to the model, start with my guide to what high-ticket dropshipping is. I am not a financial advisor, and this is operator analysis of reported results, not stock guidance.
Your Shopify shipping settings are where a carrier increase gets passed through or eaten. If your freight rates were set last spring and never touched, this is the week to rebuild them from a fresh quote. Rebuild your freight rates in Shopify →
LTL Q3 Earnings: Saia Contracts +10.8%, ODFL Yield +5.1%
Saia reported third-quarter results on Thursday, October 29, according to FreightWaves via Yahoo Finance. Revenue was $983 million, up 17% from a year earlier. Contractual rate renewals averaged 10.8%, or 15.9% on a two-year stacked basis, and a 7.1% general rate increase took effect July 6. Revenue per shipment excluding fuel rose 6%.
Saia’s headline yield tells a different story. Revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel fell 2%, because weight per shipment rose 8% while shipments rose 1%. Heavier freight spreads the price over more pounds. Tonnage rose 9%, and October tonnage was running about 10% higher. The operating ratio was 87.6%, flat year over year (lower is better), and management guided to roughly 89.6% for the fourth quarter.
XPO reported the same day. Per its third-quarter press release, North American LTL revenue was $1.47 billion, up 17.4% from $1.26 billion. Yield excluding fuel rose 3.6%. Revenue per shipment was $339.12 excluding fuel surcharges, up 2.6%, and $434.37 with them, up 11.1%. Shipments per day rose 5.8%, average weight per shipment was 1,293 pounds, down 0.7%, and the adjusted operating ratio was 80.1%, 260 basis points better.
XPO chief strategy officer Ali Faghri said, per FreightWaves, “We are delivering some of the strongest yield growth in the industry.” The same report says XPO expects a fourth-quarter adjusted operating ratio below 82%.
Old Dominion reported on Wednesday, October 28. Revenue was $1.59 billion, up 13.1%, with an operating ratio of 71.5%, 280 basis points better, according to Yahoo Finance’s earnings-call coverage. Revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel rose 5.1% for the quarter. CFO Adam Satterfield put October at 5.5% to 6% excluding fuel, and roughly 20% including it, per the Motley Fool call transcript.
Old Dominion’s general rate increase this year is 4.9%, and it took effect October 1, a month earlier than last year, per the same transcript. The company sells on service: 99% on-time delivery and a 0.1% cargo claims ratio. Customers are asking for multi-year deals. CEO Marty Freeman described the logic as locking rates early “so that when there is an inflection in the economy, you do not take a 4% rate increase this year and a 10% next year.” That transcript carries visible transcription errors, so treat the wording as approximate.
Old Dominion also gave fourth-quarter guidance, per Yahoo Finance: revenue of $1.54 billion to $1.58 billion and an operating ratio of about 73.5%, plus or minus 20 basis points. October revenue per day was running about 22% above October 2025. Weight per shipment was up about 3% year over year in October, which management called a positive demand signal.
FedEx Freight is the outlier. Its revenue per shipment rose 10.1% including fuel but only 1.6% excluding it, according to the IA Insights shipper brief of November 2. That is a secondary summary, and I could not check it against FedEx’s own filing.
Diesel Up 48% and a 7.1% GRI Set Up the LTL Price Push
Fuel explains a large share of the headline growth. Both Saia and XPO cite diesel prices up 48% from a year earlier, per FreightWaves. XPO’s LTL revenue grew 17% in total but 9% excluding fuel surcharges, so roughly half of the jump is the carriers passing through the cost of diesel. The other half is price and volume.
I have been tracking this thread for months. In July I covered LTL rates jumping 12.5% as Amazon entered trucking. In early October I wrote about the Oct. 5 rate rise, in my diesel export scare post.
On October 14 I followed with LTL rates topping 80% above 2018 for the first time, per the AFS index. Those were index readings. The earnings calls are the first time the carriers themselves have put contract numbers on the table.
The counterpoint is demand. Old Dominion’s tons per day fell 0.1% in the quarter, and its October tonnage is trending down 5% to 5.5% sequentially, against a normal seasonal drop of about 3.5%, per Yahoo Finance. Saia’s yield per hundredweight fell. XPO’s release says further upside comes “as freight demand recovers,” which is a polite way of saying it has not fully recovered.
Big-ticket demand is soft on the shipper side too. I covered consumer confidence rebounding to 91.7 while big-ticket purchase plans kept falling. Fewer pallets chasing the same trucks is the best argument you have at the negotiating table.
One more piece of context. Parcel carriers are moving the same direction. UPS reset its fuel table on November 2 and lifts rates 5.9% on December 21, per my post on the UPS fuel table reset. USPS adds a weekly fuel surcharge to parcels in January, as I noted in this post on the USPS surcharge. Freight and parcel are getting more expensive on the same schedule.
What 5% to 11% LTL Increases Do to a High-Ticket Store’s Margin
My read: the number that matters is not the average. It is the gap between what the carrier charges your supplier or your 3PL and what you charge the customer for freight. Every point of increase widens or narrows that gap, and most high-ticket stores quote freight once and forget it.
Run the hypothetical math, which is illustrative and not from any store. Say you ship 40 LTL orders a month at an average all-in freight cost of $450. That is $18,000 a month. An increase of 4.9%, Old Dominion’s general rate increase, adds about $882 a month. A 10.8% renewal, Saia’s average, adds about $1,944 a month, or roughly $23,300 a year. On a $3,200 order with a 22% gross margin, which is $704, an extra $48.60 of freight at 10.8% eats about 7% of your margin on that order if you absorb it.
Here is the rule of thumb I would use:
If freight is under 5% of order value and the increase is under 5%, absorb it and re-quote next quarter. If freight is 5% to 10% of order value, or the increase is closer to 10%, rebuild your rate table and pass at least part of it through. If freight is over 10% of order value, change the offer: end free shipping on the heaviest items, or move to a quote-at-checkout model. Those cutoffs are my judgment, not an industry standard.
Two other things matter more than the percentage. First, who holds the carrier account. Many suppliers ship on their own accounts and either pass freight through or bake it into a delivered price, so the increase reaches you as a supplier price change, not a carrier invoice. Supplier repricing is already happening, as in Whirlpool’s 7% US appliance price increase for Q4. If your suppliers are repricing, your 2027 margin is moving from both ends at once.
Second, whether your numbers are real. Freight lives in carrier invoices, supplier invoices and Shopify orders, and most owners never reconcile the three. Put the invoices in QuickBooks and tag freight by order.
If you would rather not do the bookkeeping yourself, Finaloop handles ecommerce books. For a walkthrough of how I audit a store, read what I’d fix first in a high-ticket store.
Cash timing matters as well. Carriers bill after delivery and customers pay at checkout, so rising freight tightens working capital before it shows in profit. My piece on financing ecommerce growth without hurting cash flow covers the buffer I would hold.
Think about it as three scenarios, with my own rough thresholds. In the first, carriers keep pushing and contracts renew at 5% to 11% again next year. You need a rate table that moves with quotes, and you should assume the supplier side moves too. In the second, soft tonnage forces carriers to discount to fill trucks. You will not see that unless you ask, because discounts go to the shippers who shop.
In the third, diesel falls from its 48% year-over-year jump and the fuel surcharge shrinks. That cuts total freight but not the base-rate increases carriers just described. I would not build a budget on the third scenario. I would build it on the first and treat the other two as upside.
What I’d do with that: lock whatever you can for 12 months. If a supplier or 3PL offers a fixed freight rate for a year, take it unless your volume is falling. Shippers are asking Old Dominion for multi-year deals because they expect prices to keep rising. That tells you what buyers believe about next year, and a fixed quote protects you if they are right.
Pressure also builds toward better suppliers. If a supplier’s freight is consistently the highest line on your landed cost, the fix may be a different supplier with a closer warehouse, not a better carrier. I wrote about how that choice works in wholesalers versus manufacturers. My paid supplier directory exists for exactly that search.
The honest complexity is that freight touches supplier terms, shipping tables, ad margins, customer service and cash flow all at once, and each carrier season changes the math. That is the work my team takes off store owners. If you would rather have someone build and run the shipping logic with the store, my turnkey done-for-you store build is the option.
Freight rates, supplier quotes and shipping rules are a lot to rebuild while orders keep coming. My team builds and runs the whole high-ticket store for you. See the turnkey done-for-you service →
5 LTL Freight Moves to Make Before Your 2027 Rates Lock
Do these five in order. Each takes an afternoon or less.
- Pull the last 12 months of freight invoices and split each order into base rate, fuel surcharge and accessorials such as liftgate or residential delivery. Calculate freight as a percentage of order value by product category. The categories above 10% are your problem list.
- Ask every supplier, in writing, which carrier ships your orders, whether the freight is on their contract, and what their 2027 rate is. Ask for the date that rate expires. A supplier that cannot answer is a supplier you should price-check.
- Rebuild your rate table in Shopify from fresh quotes, then put a quarterly review on the calendar. If you use carrier-calculated rates for parcel and flat tables for freight, check that your freight table is not the stale half. For the claims side, see Shopify shipping insurance and how to claim.
- Hire a virtual assistant on OnlineJobs.ph to collect quotes from three carriers or 3PLs every month. Have them log the results in a shared sheet in Google Workspace, which you can set up through my Google Workspace link. A freight quote nobody refreshes is the most expensive number in your store.
- Set a quote validity window, such as seven days, and train whoever answers your phone to say it. Phone-driven sales are the heart of high-ticket, and a business phone and texting line like Quo keeps those conversations in one place. If you want a second set of eyes on your numbers, book a discovery call.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a general rate increase?
A GRI is a carrier’s list-price increase across its tariff. Contract customers negotiate their own rate, so a GRI is a starting point and not a bill. Old Dominion’s 2026 GRI is 4.9%, effective October 1, per its CFO.
Does a 10.8% renewal mean my freight goes up 10.8%?
No. Saia’s figure is an average across its contract renewals, per FreightWaves. Your result depends on your lanes, freight class, weight and how much volume you can commit.
Should I absorb the increase or pass it to customers?
Absorb small increases on products with strong margin and pass through the rest. For the checkout side, see shipping strategies that improve the customer experience.
Do these carrier numbers apply if my supplier ships the freight?
Indirectly. The supplier pays the carrier, then passes the cost to you through a freight line or a higher delivered price. Ask for the 2027 terms in writing.
Will LTL prices fall if demand stays soft?
Nobody in these earnings reports promised it. Old Dominion’s October tonnage is weak, but its yield is still rising, and Saia is guiding to higher costs. Plan on higher prices and treat any drop as a bonus.
Which products are less exposed to freight swings?
Smaller, lighter products that ship parcel, or products where the supplier delivers on a fixed price. My free high-ticket niches list sorts ideas. The longer 150+ niches guide goes deeper.
Want to compare freight quotes and shipping rules with other high-ticket store owners? Start the 7-day free trial of my Skool community, then it is paid. Join the Skool community →
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Related Articles
If this was useful, these go deeper:
- LTL Rates Top 80% Above 2018 for First Time, AFS Says
- UPS Resets Fuel Table Nov. 2, Lifts Rates 5.9% Dec. 21
- The High-Ticket Dropshipping Tech Stack I’d Use Today
- LA-Long Beach Port Strike Deadline: Wednesday, 5 P.M. PT
- Amazon Adds LTL Labels for Bulky Sellers in October
Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and world traveler from Seattle, Washington, and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.
He maintains homes in Seattle and Bali, spends most of the year overseas, and usually returns to Seattle for about a month each summer.
