UBER FREIGHT for shippers...To replace brokers?

interesting concept that they are working on, did not see anything about guaranteeing that you will be paid, all I saw was fast booking and paying. Know what your price is, do not pull the cheap freight or else they will think it is okay to have cheap haulers which will keep prices down for everybody but you. Know your bottom line and demand fair pay.

 

What will happen to all the brokers, factoring companies that have a cut of the business now? They are not going to fade away easy. Just seems like another change which can be good or it can be a disaster if the drivers do not force a fair price.

 

Where is the strong hold over the industry?

They represent less than 5% of all the freight.

Uber's business model is about sharing, once they get into the freight business, they opened the door up to being regulated as a broker. Something Uship and others should be forced to do.

 

You realize there is a whole lot of customers out there who are willing to pay a steady, profitable rate for steady, excellent service, knowing where their load is and that it will be delivered on time and undamaged? The ones that are always after the lowest price to get their stuff hauled are not typically worth the effort. There is an old saying for people like that, someone who "knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing."

 

Mega carriers offer one thing the small carrier cannot: large capacity. The thought that they provide this for a low freight rate is wrong. They are being paid handsomely, for yes, all those commodities which are not particularly time sensitive, but still need to get where they need to go. All those dropped trailers and large number of loads daily for a customer at a contract rate is where the mega carrier makes their money. Sure, the shipper could get it done for less on the spot market for probably less money, but would they have 1 carrier to deal with and know their freight cost rather than trying to do the equivalent of herding cats to try to *maybe* save a few dollars but give up the weight that comes with a large contract?

This allows the mega carrier to underbid small contracts where the shipper doesn't much care when or if the product gets to it's destination, in order for the large carrier to re-position it's trucks into it's lanes, when necessary. That must be where the thinking of the mega hauling it for next to nothing comes from. Bear in mind, that mega was probably paid round trip (or darn near) to go there in the first place.

Mega carriers actually control only a small % of what is moved. And most of the mega carriers are in the dry box, and some in the reefer markets. Even in these markets, they control only a small share. If I had to guess, I would say they control maybe 10% of all the trucks on the road, and perhaps 30-40% of the dry box/reefer loads. Flats? 5% (?) Specialized...?? 0% ? Remember, the bigger they get, the more they can use economies of scale. Which lends itself to dry boxes and reefers.

Find your niche. And exploit the hell out of it.

 

Everyone is in business to make money, you can not blame them for wanting to ship it at the lowest cost. This can change the way cargo is shipped fast if they have a seamless and quick way of picking loads, we went into the e-log bit and survived along with many other changes. Just watch out for the regulators sticking there hands out quickly trying to get a cut of the action.

 

My question is this to YOU.

What does it matter?

You are not a player in the bigger picture and if you own even ten trucks your source of work is different from them.

You and others like you seem to think the megas are the ones who are controlling the rates in the industry, they really don't, it is first the customers and then the whole capacity within the segment of the industry.