Cheap Freight Of The Day??

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wecandoit

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Nov 14, 2009
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The award goes to NOLAN TRANSPORTATION - load from Montreal, PQ to Bluffton, IN for $750 Canadian...Shame on you guys...I will pay you $800 and take my load from Montreal to bluffton, IN on your own truck. I will see how you can do that...stop whoring rates...
 
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supply and demand is the name of the game!

outbound is super cheap right now but inbound is crazy! $3/mile+++
 
Roca said:
supply and demand is the name of the game!

outbound is super cheap right now but inbound is crazy! $3/mile+++
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And the point is???

A truck/carrier has the same operating costs no matter which way it is going.

Head-haul and back-haul rates were the age of the dinosaur. The industry did it to themselves but it's time load brokers come in to the
21st century.

It's ok to sell freight for zip when you get your 20% for making a 10 minute phone call. What about the stress and b/s a driver (the guy that actually does the work) has to put up with dealing with impossible promises, incomplete transportion paperwork, weather, customs and traffic?

Rates should not be any different. A load od t/p from Toronto to Chicago should be rated the same as load of t/p from Chicago to Toronto.

It's the same mileage, same borders, same routings but for some reason load brokers figure outbound fuel costs 60% less.
 
Buzzy, I get the point you are making, but I don't think the thought process is restricted to Brokers per se. It's your truck so you dictate what you will run for and what you won't. I don't know of any Broker that can force a carrier to take a load against their wishes. Let's face it, trucking has a commodity based pricing.
My 1.5 cents.....
 
buzzy said:
And the point is???

A truck/carrier has the same operating costs no matter which way it is going.

Head-haul and back-haul rates were the age of the dinosaur. The industry did it to themselves but it's time load brokers come in to the
21st century.

It's ok to sell freight for zip when you get your 20% for making a 10 minute phone call. What about the stress and b/s a driver (the guy that actually does the work) has to put up with dealing with impossible promises, incomplete transportion paperwork, weather, customs and traffic?

Rates should not be any different. A load od t/p from Toronto to Chicago should be rated the same as load of t/p from Chicago to Toronto.

It's the same mileage, same borders, same routings but for some reason load brokers figure outbound fuel costs 60% less.
Click to expand...

sorry for having offended you but it's just how business works, it's the basics, supply and demand...

outbound is uber cheap, but then inbound is uber expensive!
 
I think people will be in for a surprise in the next few weeks as they continue the pants-down-at-ankles pricing of outbound to these hot produce areas only to find out that produce is over and the people they blew off are the ones who will remember how arrogant they were. There's no need to drop your pants to get a load just because you think you can make it up on the inbound. It's pure lunacy and when the inbound returns to normal, which it will in a couple of weeks, I will relish that some will be caught with their pants down in the south-east, when they cannot find a precious $2500 load to pay for the rounder.
 
noproblembuddy said:
I think people will be in for a surprise in the next few weeks as they continue the pants-down-at-ankles pricing of outbound to these hot produce areas only to find out that produce is over and the people they blew off are the ones who will remember how arrogant they were. There's no need to drop your pants to get a load just because you think you can make it up on the inbound. It's pure lunacy and when the inbound returns to normal, which it will in a couple of weeks, I will relish that some will be caught with their pants down in the south-east, when they cannot find a precious $2500 load to pay for the rounder.
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Agreed!
Now if we could just get the entire industry to practice this type of thought we wouldn't have guys like Roca trying to sell O/B loads for 1.00 a mile but willing to pay 4.00 a mile on the I/B.
 
it isn't just me, a lot of the times the customer makes the rates and we live with them...

we're all trying to make a living, right?

and we don't do produce or take much advantage of that, we don't do anything fresh
 
Why is it when carriers are asking to be paid the big rates when there is a lack of capacity - they are looked down upon - NEWS FLASH - outbound rates have been in the 1.20 -1.40 range into the Midwest for a long time now - not just since produce season started - also do brokers not almost always make a profit on the loads they sell - do you think carriers should not be afforded the same opportunity to make profit when the markets warrant such - to help offset the break even or loss they have when the economy is down.
 
Roca

We cannot agree on that philosophy.

A professional freight broker will not perpetuate that type of market led pricing.
The owner of the business again is in it for the long run, will have to decide if he will alienate his good carriers by insulting them with a price that is not sustainable.

Again a good carrier, that is not up against the wall, will not take freight when pricing is very low. In essence he will not shoot himself in the foot. It is easy to drag prices down, but becomes very hard to gain back the lost ground.

As a carrier we will be more reticent to allow the price to fall below a sustainable level. WE know that in the end we will go bust if we put it on our equipment.
 
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It's funny how this discussion keeps coming up. We all know that the cost per mile inbound is the same as outbound. We all know this industry has always had head hauls and back hauls. What some people are having a problem realizing that outbound is now the backhaul and it has been for a good 1 to 2 years. The companies that are struggling and closing are the ones who cannot get their head around the concept and trust me there are quite a few. We price everything on the round trip and if we hit that magic number it's a go, we really don't care what rate we get going one way or another as long as we hit the number on the rounder. Please keep struggling with this concept because it is giving us a lot of freight.
 
lowmiler - great point - I think these days it also comes down to loyalty - not just between brokers and carriers but shippers as well - if you are getting beat up on rates going outbound you need to make it up coming back - and vice versa - most of those that run traffic departments are all about price now - very hard to find the customers who care about service, safety and relationships. Not sure that this capacity crunch is all about "produce season" this year - and if CSA2010 goes through as proposed - this type of market could easily become the norm - 400,000 truck driving jobs need to be filled by 2011 - Jun. 9, 2010 and of course this could lead to some serious issues as well - it is going to be an interesting end to this year for sure.
 
well we're also giving some carriers what they want, they ask for the freight and if it is covered they will say I'll do it for $100 cheaper! so that's not our fault if some are cut throat like this.

again we're all in business to make money.

we try to stay on good terms and make friends, and pay quickly to keep getting calls for freight from carriers.

but again we don't do produce so that market won't affect us, plus the little outbound we get we just book it, our strong point is inbound.

so once again, I don't mean to offend anyone, but the market predicts the rates right now, no matter how much you want to fight it the customers are aware of this and they work with it in effect.
 
Wow ... did this one open a can of worms ...

The fact is, by changing the pricing to make outbound cheap and inbound expensive, in the long term will put Canadian manufacturing in a more competitive position, especially on certain products. It is part of what if figured out in the trade balance.

As far a s comment from earlier about brokers making a 10 minute phone call for their 10% ... man, you're on crack!!! Freight other than outbound doesn't get covered so easy ... and for us, we leverage the outbound freight for inbound capacity, and really our margin is the same regardless if the same lane costs us $1000 or $1200 or $2000. Actually as a % it's actually lower the higher the invoiced rate.

You can't have it both ways.
 
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To Roca and other price only based brokers.

While digging up my vegetable patch this week end, I had time to mull over some of the issues you have brought up.
The most disconcerting is when you mention, that it is not your fault when a carrier calls and offers $100.00 less for the load than the previous one.

That may not be your fault , although taking it up certainly would be. Another question that comes to mind is how the carrier knows your rate, and why the discussion of the rate for the already booked load even comes up.

There is very little that is more irksome for us , than a freight broker playing with a load and looking for the lowest bidder. We simply ask for their rate and when one is not offered we stop right there, again we will not get into a bidding war because we are well aware that this policy is detrimental to our success in the long run.

There will always be the disparity between the backhaul and the outbound freight , although the line seems to be blurred at present.

The simple fact here is that as a carrier, we operate within parameters that you simply do not grasp. Carriers have operational costs that need to be respected.

I can assure you that these cut rate loads are not perpetuated by carriers. If price based freight brokers would not drop the rate considerably, carriers would not have to match them.

Unfortaunatly, due to these brokers , this is the way of the world and we have to live with it, and we do. Although we do not have to like it, as you may surmise by my early rant this morning.

It may just be time for some basic form of regulation !!!!
 
I think you misunderstood me, we get barley any outbound so we just make minimums and it is already cheap enough, all our inbound usually pays great or good, or at least not horrible

So this issue is just a little percentage of our business, we just deal with it until it gets better, but when the inbound gets cut, we just back off or we come back with a higher price, these days prices are VERY negotiable and all clients know that if you let a truck go, you lose him, so if the freight needs to move they pay...
 
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