Shipper
Also: Consignor · Customer
In freight, the shipper is the party that tenders the freight for transport, named on the bill of lading as the consignor; in a broker's vocabulary the word also means the customer, the company whose freight the brokerage moves and whose traffic or logistics manager the sales team calls.
Two meanings, which usually coincide and sometimes do not.
On a bill of lading, the shipper is the consignor: the party at the origin dock that loaded the freight. The consignee is at the other end. Which of them pays the freight depends on the terms of sale, and the party paying is who the broker actually works for.
In a brokerage, “shipper” means customer. A manufacturer, a distributor, a food processor, a building products company: anyone with regular freight to move who does not run its own fleet. The person a broker’s sales rep calls is the traffic manager, logistics manager or plant manager who decides which carriers and brokers get the freight. Winning a shipper means getting onto that person’s list, then earning a share of the tenders, then earning contract lanes at the annual bid.
Shippers hear from many brokers a week, and the objections are predictable: they have a broker, they have carriers, send information, what is your rate. The brokers that win are the ones who ask a specific question about the shipper’s lanes and problems, not the ones who describe their own service. It is a phone skill, and it is learnable.
Guides that use this term
Updated September 11, 2026 · All terms