Broker Transparency

Will do. Letters in the mail

 

Short answer is, they don't want carriers to find out that they are being taken advantage of by the brokers. They don't want everyone to know that 10% they say they are only making is a load of crap.... They will come up with every excuse they can come up with to avoid being transparent.

 

I thought I read somewhere the broker organizations said that if this goes through it will cost the brokers billions of dollars...

I do not think that's 10%.

 

How about this:

If they pay me 4 dol per mile on a load or more, I don't need transparency.
On loads that pay less than that, I am for transparency.

 

The rate the broker gets should be on the rate con. Right now, people talk about rates getting driven down by truckers, when it's also the brokers that are driving rates down. I'm sure sometimes when they say "that's all I got in it", they might be telling the truth, and just contributed to driving rates down.

If what the broker got was on the rate con, they would have to pay truckers more, or truck drivers would throw a freaking fit about obviously getting screwed. So if the broker wanted to still make his nut, then the broker would need to charge the shipper more, thus driving rates up to eventually settle where supply and demand tells them too.

But when there's no transparency from the middle man, it creates two separate sets of "rates". The ones the shippers will allow, and the ones the truck drivers will allow. If brokers were fully transparent, then brokers and truckers would be able to go after the shipper as a team, instead of as enemies.

Most of you know I don't have jack for experience yet, but that's my take on the matter.

 

When you go to the grocery store do you ask what the cost is on each item you buy so can see how much the mark up is? I’ll bet you don’t. If you saw the markup on some items I’m sure you would consider not buying it.
Medical supplies. A business with unscrupulously marked up items. My ex once managed a medical supply store.
Knowing the profit margin of a broker really is no different than the 2 scenarios I have mentioned. So why do you need to know what the broker is making? If you don’t like it leave it.
The only reason to know is because of an unenforced regulation.

 

Look, I fully agree with what you're saying here. In fact, that's how I currently run.

But as it stands, the shipper beats down the broker, and the broker beats down the driver. If the broker was forced to disclose their rate from the shipper on every rate con, then drivers would push their margin tighter. Then, brokers would be forced to push the shipper harder for money if they wanted to make any.

At that point, you have the shipper trying to beat down the brokers and drivers as a team, instead of everybody trying to shave as much off the top as possible. Basically the drivers and brokers would cause the shippers to pay out the maximum that supply and demand would allow, instead of creating two separate sets of supply and demand.

Edit: What I mean is, if the broker were forced to disclose on every rate con, then it would be good for the broker and the driver in the end, because they would naturally team up against the shipper.