mercer transportation

A quote from XPO, "XPO is the world's second largest freight broker, with technology that pinpoints the optimal carrier per load."
Another quote from XPO, "XPO is the 3PL that treats you with respect. We have our priorities straight with carrier relationships."

I agree 100% with you that people clearly don't understand!

Edit: Honestly I could care less who's freight it is as long as I'm happy, but I have a few questions seeing as though you're in the know. When you pull up to a shipper & you see let's say XPO on your BOL, do you ask if they're the XPO 3pl, or XPO brokerage? Do you immediately call the agent & confirm? Do you follow up that confirmation in Louisville with the invoice?

 

Brokers, 3PLs, and Agents are all just different breeds of the same species.

One of the guys in contractor relations told me 3PLs have become a major problem with driving rates down.

 

Years ago companies had traffic managers, now they fired the traffic managers and gave that work to logistics companies, you still have the same customers but now you get it from a logistics company.

 

I really don't care who originated the load, the only thing that concerns me is if the load pays enough to meet my requirements. But there are many who have a problem with Mercer, or whatever company they are with, getting "brokered" loads. Many shippers no longer deal with negotiations with dozens or even hundreds of different carriers, so if one is not going to accept loads from 3PLs or brokers then there are a whole lot of shippers they will not be loading at. Over the years everyone has cut costs and one way is to reduce the number of people it takes to coordinate freight movements. Where companies had several people, or dozens at large corporations, contacting carriers and searching for an acceptable rate, they now make one call to a broker or let their in-house 3PL person do all that work. Also they are no longer dealing with carrier representatives and independent drivers knocking on their doors trying to get freight. Not saying I like it, from our point of view it sucks, from their point of view it significantly reduces labor costs and is much more efficient.

I was looking at some loads today going 1000+ miles @ 1.47/mi. Yeah that sucks .... and the only reason they are posted is because the shipper offered them to the agent, the decision to take the load is the drivers. That does not mean the agent thinks it is a good deal. Now, if you know the rest of the story, the carrier that came in a while back and became the primary carrier beat our rates so badly I don't see how they can make any money. But they have been buying up small carriers all over the region and now management thinks that volume will make up for price. That's what JB did decades ago when they bragged about hauling freight in a market under cost. They were so big everyone else got out of those markets, many went out of business. Then JB went and raised their rates to a (barely) profitable level and moved on to pillage the next market. And several union LTL companies did the same thing, pricing each other out of markets and help contributing to the demise of their union brothers.
And BTW for those who have been around long enough, remember when no matter where you were in the country you saw dozens of JB OTR trucks every day. Now look at them, OTR is minimal and usually handled by contracted carriers. They are getting heavy into rail and taking over the entire trucking operations of companies that used to have their own fleets (always the best jobs in the industry). The drivers no longer work for the parent company and lose all the benefits of that relationship, and almost always take a huge pay cut if they continue on with JB working at the same place. This, we call progress.

Now back to that 1.47 load tender ... from the shippers point of view that is a big rate increase because they have to offer it to 'outside' carriers at a significantly higher rate than their primary carrier charges, and they only offer loads when they primary cannot handle things when demand exceeds their capacity. So from their point of view 1.47 is over-paying for what they think should be much cheaper. Another case of mismanaged companies undervaluing their worth, and the value of their drivers, and severely undercutting market rates. Independents do this frequently running for fuel money and taking other cheap freight.

 

Yes and that shipping manager didn’t take a bite out of the apple. The logistics company does. And it’s a severely bitten apple by the time the o/o gets his bite

 

If you want to see what is going to drive down rates even further look at the big tech companies looking to capitalize on the $800 billion freight market and get their little slice of the pie. Convoy, Uber, Amazon and Oracle are the current leaders in trying to take more money out of our pockets. Reading their proposals they actually speak of how this will improve drivers lives ... my reading comprehension must be slacking off because I could not make that connection.

None of this comes from the "chrome & polish & loud pipes" magazines ...

Here's a start for the few who want to really understand what's happening in the trucking industry


Oracle is joining Amazon and Uber in the race to digitize the 'antiquated' $800 billion trucking industry

Digital Freight Matching (DFM) Technology Continues to Make Strides

Convoy secures an additional $400 million in funding, with a focus on eliminating waste in trucking

 

Remember when jb filed for bankruptcy and convinced the govt they were too big to close shop so our tax dollars were used to subsidize them and jb lowered their rates even more? Good times..not

 

My questions weren’t about the history of logistics & JB.

 

So how is any of what I quoted from you, different than what you asked for proof of from other people? Again, I could care less who’s load I haul as long as the rate is good.

 

You don’t see how they can make money because you’re missing a significant part of the calculation. If you’re offered $1.47 that’s not what a carrier is moving it for. You’re not the carrier, Mercer is.