I agree, USHIP sucks.

That's why it needs to work differently.

I have no issues with competition, but, when you don't compete on a level playing field ( uninsured, non-compliant, etc) then it's not working right.

 

Did you read the thread all the way through?

I actually mentioned all this earlier... Imitating UShip is not what you want to do. What you cannot and must not do is try to do exactly what UShip does. UShip does NOTHING for their money. They convince people to give them money with a great marketing compaign, but they do ... Nothing.

Now, to return to the original premise. The premise is not to build a site, and hope to do what UShip does and hope people will somehow be magically attracted to it.

Now, let's imagine this: That you market this to truckers first, and that it isn't just a third party trying to weasel money by inserting itself in the middle, but instead becomes a common mechanism by which you facilitate business between existing shippers and O/O's. And, you can then use this to tap into the market that UShip exploits. They get up to 20% of the entire tab for themselves, and yet, they do absolutely nothing but operate a dysfunctional website.

Why did I call it a "consortium"? Because it's member owned and directed, and who are the members? The O/O's themselves. By making a system that automates a huge part of the paperwork and communication between existing business relationships, and creates an attractive mechanism by which you add additional shippers and O/O's. And that can come to include the public.

Many of you operate by hiring a dispatcher, or you have a few favorite brokers and shippers you call or call you. Imagine if most of that functionality was automated, and consumed 1-3% instead of 5-15% of the total bill? The difference that's the most important, is that it operates FOR YOUR BENEFIT, not some huckster with a website.

 

Ahh,now I get your POV. I'd bet that the vast majority of O/O types are NOT "good salesmen". They "good truckers". In reality, success should not be based on how good of a "salesman" you are, but rather, on whether you're a professional trucker. There are few born marketers and born salespeople among those who work for a living - and I count truckers as "working for a living" just like I do farmers, mechanics, loggers, and so on.

UShip is nothing BUT sales. They produce nothing for their money, they attract it by attempting to sell "low prices" to a consumer. And they "attract" people to move things by selling "making money" to the ignorant.

I would suppose that if you're a born salesperson, you might object to the idea of something that reduces the perceived value of your salesmanship in being a success at driving a truck. But the vast majority of people are not particularly great at sales, and something that increases their exposure in the marketplace and broadens their access to the market would work for them.

If I produced something that needed to be moved, I would not touch UShip with a ten foot pole - everything from the language, to the reviews, to the isolation from the essential relationship between the buyer and seller pushes anyone serious away.

Now, imagine, instead of separating the buyer and seller - like Ebay and UShip do, as the mechanism to make money (while providing a common marketplace), the system brings them together in a true professional business relationship.

 

Ok, so I'll talk about the elephant in the room. For O/O types, no matter what kind, their key to success is a relationship with one or more brokers / shippers / dispatchers. New people coming along (like me) don't understand this at first and think there's some open market where they just sign up and compete as truckers.

Nope, that's not how it works. For the majority of independent people, they have made it by establishing a narrow and profitable relationship that keeps them busy. For people who need to ship, they have to choose a broker, or trucking (transportation) company or 3PL to fulfill their needs for them.

Traditionally, truckers never "give away" who they do stuff for, since preventing intrusion into their small slice of the market is how they maintain rates and steady, repeat business. They come here and discourage new guys, with their defensive attitudes, and they don't like open markets, since that's not what their business model is based on.

That's a terrible mistake, and it has been proven to be so by the massive shrinkage of the O/O numbers vs trucking companies. O/O appear to be a dying breed, if you just look at the trends over the decades. Following the line means you get to 0 or near 0 as the bigs grow, the small and independents shrink.

But, this trend is caused PRECISELY because of how marketing works. One lone trucker vs the marketing and sales muscle of (insert any of the larger firms here)? YOU KNOW WHO WILL LOSE. And the O/O becomes more and more niche market and person to person relationships. Anyone can get anything moved by calling up the big guys. And the independent is invisible.

And what do independents do? Try to prevent the entry of more by encouraging and hanging onto the very invisibility that's killing them off in a slow death.

Brokers don't work for you, they work for sellers. And they compete to lower YOUR income for providing the same service.

The mechanism by which the independent acts to keep his business intact... is the mechanism by which the larger guys are eating their lunch, by being visible and by being ubiquitous. So, by protecting his turf against his fellow independent... He is sacrificing the larger markets to the big trucking firms.

This is why truckers need to re-think how they approach markets and marketing. And this is the concept I've been thinking about and writing my thoughts in this thread.

 

I appreciate your help in making my point.