Brokers offer transparency. Imagine that!

Discussion in 'Ask An Owner Operator' started by TallJoe, Mar 23, 2023.

  1. wichris

    wichris Road Train Member

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    Again with the real estate comparison. Apples to oranges.
     
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  3. Long FLD

    Long FLD Road Train Member

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    The current market has already established what a broker gets, same as when it flips the other way due to more loads than trucks. You’ve admitted earlier that transparency won’t change the load to truck ratio, so what is your end goal with the transparency? If there’s 100 trucks and 5 loads it’s not going to matter if all 100 people know the broker is getting $5000. The 5 loads will move cheaper. They have to just based on the competition of the available trucks.

    Real estate is apples to oranges. For the comparison to trucks to be similar the seller would have to agree to sell the house for a certain price, once that agreement has been made then the seller would step out. At that point the broker would put the house on the market and hope to get what the market will bear as that’s where their profit would be. And the original seller would have no idea if the broker made or lost money because they’re out of the deal and their house is gone and they already have their check.
     
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  4. wichris

    wichris Road Train Member

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    Carrier would have to do it for 1700. 15% commission they wanted.
     
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  5. wichris

    wichris Road Train Member

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    I don't think very few that want this realize how much of the things they buy have a broker between the manufacturer and the consumer.
    For the most part, only the very large buy direct.
     
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  6. TallJoe

    TallJoe Road Train Member

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    You are mixing concepts and ideas too. Telling me not to compare oranges to apples applies more to your pizza place analogy.

    What I am looking for is to eliminate parasitic burden in otherwise simple equation: I haul, shipper pays, broker gets his commission. Yes, if the commission affects the livelihood of either a shipper or a carrier, they become parasites. The idea is to channel as much from the shipper's transportation budget as it is possible. Their role is to find the cheapest, yet reliable carrier. That's where the market equilibrium determining the rate should be found.

    BTW: They are accusing me of calling for governmental control, while they themselves benefit from it to a certain extent. HOS, Safety Ratings, mandatory insurance requirement, different sorts of freight permits are all variables imposed by the government which shippers don't want to deal with and therefore they resort to brokers by delegating this, otherwise artificially made, burden on them. Just like ELDs justify their existence in the name of safety, whereas without the mandate they would seize to exist.
     
  7. TallJoe

    TallJoe Road Train Member

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    I say it is spot on.
    There is a seller and a buyer, and a middle man in between. The parties are negotiating the price of commodity that has more or less established or predictable value by adjacent dwellings in the area and the last thing on their mind is to worry about what the broker's commission is going to cost them, because that can be more or less predetermined by existing standards.
    Everybody knows their place in a row.
     
  8. Oxbow

    Oxbow Road Train Member

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    Truer words have never been spoken!
     
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  9. Jubal Early Times

    Jubal Early Times Road Train Member

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    I think your biggest problem is that you don’t see the value a broker brings to your business. You discount the work that they do. I suggest you spend a week shadowing one and your opinions may change.
     
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  10. TallJoe

    TallJoe Road Train Member

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    I don't need to appreciate anything. I already decided not be a brick layer, a florist, a cattle farmer, a broker, a loan shark or a mobster.
     
  11. Jubal Early Times

    Jubal Early Times Road Train Member

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    That makes no sense. But to use your example. To an uninformed person a brick layer only stacks blocks all day. Why should he charge so much. Until you spend a day slinging blocks in the hot sun. Then you understand why he gets what he gets.
     
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