What is MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) in transport?

MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) is the smallest order a supplier or carrier is willing to accept. In road freight it is the minimum load, expressed as weight, loading metres, pallet count or simply a minimum charge, that makes a delivery worth running at all.

An MOQ is not a sales tactic. A truck costs roughly the same to send out half empty as full, so below a certain load the cost per unit stops working for the carrier. For the shipper the MOQ is therefore a planning constraint: it shapes order sizes, delivery frequency and how often small consignments get grouped together.

On This Page

1. How an MOQ is defined in road freight
2. What to do when an order misses the MOQ
3. MOQ and the empty running problem
4. MOQ is not the same as a full truckload
5. Hitting the MOQ in day-to-day planning

How an MOQ is defined in road freight

Four forms, sometimes combined in one rate card:

• a minimum weight, for example two tonnes per shipment
• a minimum volume or number of loading metres, so a share of the trailer floor
• a minimum pallet count, common in retail distribution
• a minimum freight charge, which sets a floor on price rather than on size

Which one a carrier uses depends on the lane and on what constrains their vehicle: weight limits bind on dense goods, floor space binds on light and bulky ones.

What to do when an order misses the MOQ

Three routes out, in the order most dispatchers try them:

• Combine orders. Group several small consignments heading to the same customer, region or corridor. This is the practice of merging small consignments into one economical load and it is the first lever, because it changes nothing for the customer.
• Shift the timing. Hold an order a day to build volume, where the delivery window allows it.
• Buy space instead of a truck. Where the volume genuinely is not there, move the freight as a shipment that pays only for the trailer space it occupies rather than paying an MOQ built for a whole vehicle.

MOQ and the empty running problem

An MOQ set too high produces exactly what it was meant to prevent. Rejected small orders do not disappear, they go to a competitor, and the truck that was protected from an uneconomical load often runs the return leg with nothing on it.

That is the connection worth watching: MOQ policy and the kilometres a vehicle runs with no revenue on board are the same problem seen from two ends. A carrier who can consolidate reliably can afford a lower MOQ than one who cannot.

MOQ is not the same as a full truckload

The two get confused in quoting. An MOQ is a threshold for accepting or pricing an order. A load that fills the vehicle and travels direct is a service type. An order can clear the MOQ without filling the truck, and a full truckload can still fail a revenue-based MOQ on a cheap lane.

The unit that connects them is floor space: the loading metre, one metre of trailer length across its full width, is what both a part load and a minimum quantity are ultimately measured in.

Hitting the MOQ in day-to-day planning

Meeting an MOQ consistently is a visibility problem before it is a commercial one. You need to see which shipments are already committed to a tour, what capacity is still free on each vehicle, and what a combined load would cost, while there is still time to change it.

The sequence is what matters. Capacity has to be visible before the tour is confirmed, because that is the last moment a consolidation decision has anywhere to go. Once the vehicle is committed, an order below the MOQ has only two outcomes left, a loss-making run or a refusal, and both were avoidable an hour earlier.