Lumper Economics (in the grocery industry.)?

I work for a large truck-load carrier. On occasion, I get loads that deliver to a grocery DC. Of course, that means it's going to involve lumpers. The grocery industry is traditionally highly competitive and low-margin. But what I'm curious about is how exactly do they save money by going the lumper route?

Of course, I have to admit that the very concept of me paying somebody to unload the goods from my trailer, that they ordered and paid to be delivered to them seems warped. But regardless . . .

The trucking company doesn't eat the lumper fee; my understanding is that it gets passed back ultimately to the shipper. Presumably, the shipper anticipates these lumper costs coming back to them, and prices their product accordingly to recover that cost.

So in the end, it would seem that not only does the grocery wholesaler still incur the costs (indirectly) of unloading trailers of product they've ordered, but in the process they have added numerous links in the chain (middle-men), adding additional costs and fees compared to just hiring their own staff for unloading trailers in the first place.

What am I missing here?

 

Thanks for all your responses. Don't know that we arrived at any definitive conclusions, but at least we're sharing different perspectives.

I'll also add that on numerous occasions, I've had Procter & Gamble loads going to grocery DC's, where the receiver looked at the BOLs and stated the P&G loads had the lumper charges prepaid. Apparently P&G recognizes the extra costs and inconveniences associated with processing lumper charges throughout the logistics chain. I would hope also that P&G gives a slightly better price to non-lumper customers since they are not absorbing the lumper charges.

One other aspect of the lumper process I'll mention (and I don't have a name for this) is that not all loads are treated the same way. On my last lumper load (which had some over-the-counter medical-type merchandise), the receiver took a look at the contents on the bills, and promptly informed me that the unload process could take "up to eight hours." I asked why, and they claimed that "we don't own this product, so we have to inventory everything on the dock and make sure there isn't anything here we didn't order." Not sure how accurate that statement was, but the idea is that they are holding the driver up in case there is something in the load they want to refuse. If so, they put it back on the truck and it's the driver's problem. Of course, besides the extra time involved here, it's extra time for the lumpers to inventory too, and we're paying for that also. That lumper charge came to around $465. Luckily, the process in my case only took about 3½ hours. I'm sure some of them do go the full eight hours however.

If the receiver was paying a reasonable hourly charge for holding the driver up, this wouldn't be happening. Just another form of taking advantage of the situation (a.k.a. driver abuse.)