Uber Freight?! What is this madness?!?!

So a comparable rate. So at least its not the crap uship turned into.

 

Pretty much.

 

Talked to a programmer and we talked uber freight. He said all prices are done by a algorithm and the computers will set the price based on data collected. Eventually like the car service prices will drop down and barley be enough to make a decent profit . The business model they used for ride share is almost the exact for freight. Eventually certain lanes will be populated by Uber drivers and prices will fall . Was a interesting and insightful convo.

 

not sure how that sits with shippers.. if they see that uber will charge X for the load and their already known broker would charge less, guess what happens...

 

Well they had a load posted for $1,200 and I countered @ $2,000. They came back and told me $1,500 was the most they could pay and since that was what I had previously booked it for. Then they came back later and offered $1,750.

This was a person I was talking with. Computer algorithms can't negotiate although it likely generated the original $1,200 posted rate. Funny thing was it sat there all day. I rejected the $1,750 then later thought better of it but they said by then it did cover for the $1,200. So the algorithm was right after all.

Somebody came along happily accepted the posted rate never knowing they left at least $500-$750 more on the table because Uber had ZERO leverage. It makes sense that the rates will go down but it won't be Uber pushing them down. The drivers will happily do it to themselves.

Really I think all,the talk about algorithms and apps is a bunch of smoke and mirrors. A few years ago when they came onto the scene in,the freight business they thought they would set the world on fire and turn traditional trucking on its head like they did with cabs and ride sharing. They lost a lot of money and got humbled for sure. I think they are just another CHRW or TQL with a bunch of underpaid overstressed recent college grads working the phones in a boiler room and some sales people. Probably people they poached from other brokerages.

The one thing they have going for them,is the no fee quick pay. That ought to have every other broker out here really nervous about their own future or at least their traditional slow payment terms might become a thing of the past.

 

I think it'll take more than Uber to turn that around, if another one or two big names do it then it's possible.

I can also see several smaller brokerages try to do the same. Some of those will be underfunded and there's a good chance they might go under, leaving trucking companies with nothing. I don't have a problem waiting 25-35 days for my money. But getting it in a few days after delivering a load would be nice.

 

Uber did buy an automated truck company.

 

they called me yesterday to see if i wanted to setup.

 

How where you able to negotiate the posting rate on Uber? i havent seen that option.. i almost picked up a load paying $2.14/mile but i didnt like the route, weigh and end point..

 

They called me on my posted truck. We also ended up conversing and negotiating via email and text message on a handful of other loads. They were CA phone numbers.