Uber getting into trucker

I was at 12.68% for the year. I was only that high because I have a customer I do 2-3 loads a week for with 20%+ margins. The produce was usually in the 8-10% range.

 

I'm a lot more scared of Amazon than I am of Uber. Most of these services have to do two things:

1) They have to design a platform that doesn't suck. This isn't THAT hard as the technology already exists. Is it complicated? Sure. That doesn't mean that there isn't a billion dollars in it for someone who can do it well.

2) They have to get trucking companies and shippers to use it. Amazon doesn't have that problem because they have vast quantities of their own freight. If Amazon started offering their own freight through their own platform all of you would at least download it and look around. The second you do that and it doesn't suck I'm in a world of hurt.

15% is silly. It's not a competitive offer in this market. Also they have to take as much responsibility as a normal freight broker. That's not something they get to 'disrupt'. The industry needs brokers to take exactly as much liability as they do now.

 

I've given some real thought to an 'uber for trucks' scenario. I'll probably just go to a flat management fee per load with most of my customers in that world. I'll just find the best match for them and book the truck. Modern freight brokering is already not that far from this point.

Technology has gradually stripped a lot of the grunt work out of being a freight broker. You would think that this would lead to higher margins, but it's actually compressed them heavily on a per load basis. I talk to people who were freight brokers in the fax machine era... They used to make 6-700 dollars a load without batting an eye. I would give a non-thumb finger to lock down half that per load number down for 10 years.

EDIT: Because obviously if I had that rate locked in at scale it would be time to start the next TQL. I'd literally make a billion dollars and I'd be sure to sell before the 10 years ended lol.

 

Reefer and dry only it looks like...




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They are looking at 5% not 15%

 

I don't think UBER is going to be getting into anything except bankruptcy protection. They are starting what appears to be the downward slope of a crash. My reasoning is Arianna Huffington is on the board of directors and has been pushing much of the 'new' direction after the Kalinick fleecing... (she is poison to business). Google is suing the s### out of Uber for patient violations, intellectual property theft, and about 5,000 other things centered around the self driving car project. And the planned call center/brokerage thing they had planned to build has been scaled back from a projected 6,500 employees to zero.
Forbes, Business Insider, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal all have expressed alarm about Uber hemorrhaging billions each quarter.

 

Isnt this what Uship and Truckstop are already doing?

 

Im all for uber freight as long as we drivers get paid more. If brokers are replaced by the app, it may be a good thing for drivers.

 

You'll still see dog poop rates I promise you. The mentality is the shipper doesn't have to also pay a broker so they'll post a lower rate figuring the broker was ripping them off.