Brokers, Please explain the plummeting rates these days.

If someone can do it cheaper, by all means use them. Your load might make it on time…in one piece…at all. Your risk, not mine. Refer to my spotless record of zero load claims over 17 years and 100% on time rate.

My expenses go up, my rates go up. Your load goes to a black hole? Rate goes up. You’re on the phone with me about moving your freight? My rate is what I dictate. Don’t like it? Hang up and never call me again. By all means, haul that load with your computer and cell phone.

Never heard a shipper negotiate a lower rate because you use FSC, but you turn around and say most shippers aren’t using FSC. Do you need help keeping your story straight? Wobbles more than a drunk driver on a PA backroad. More than likely coming from a shallow puddle of experience though.

So, again, my business has Expenses A. I charge Rate B. I set Rate B to be well and above Expenses A. The number of trucks out there make no bearing on either in my operation. If you want to continue thinking that “supply and demand” sets your rate, go ahead and quit before you lose your whole ###.

 

"Then the shipper can keep his #### sitting on a dock !"

Dsv brokers are the biggest cheapskates.. I used to lease with them and they were cheapskates even to their own people..

 

As a supplier, you only set the rate when demand outweighs supply (see the last 2 years in the truckload market). When the pendulum swings the other way, it's buyers that set the price of goods sold. If your price doesn't match the rated needed to capture one of the limited buyers available in the market, your service/product is not bought.

 

This is spot on, and reflects cost in any market scenario, truckload or otherwise.

 

You have genuine irrefutable evidence that the cost of fuel is skyrocketing while the cost to the truck across the domestic truckload market is plummeting. Your point above is genuinely being proven wrong in our current market in real time, meanwhile you've made multiple posts indicating that you think people are lying to you about how economics work.

If it helps you understand better, the information you are basing your argument on is referred to as anecdotal evidence, and is the observation of one person. The supply versus demand information that others are basing their argument on is referred to as empirical (or observable) evidence because it is observable to everyone.

 

Brokerspeak! I set my rates. Don't like the price? Don't buy it. My rates are set to my expenses. They go up, so does my rate. They go down, so does my rate. There will always be slow and high periods in anything being bought and sold. If I thought like you brokers do I'd be bankrupt. Maybe if you had extremely variable operating expenses and had to pay yourself a living wage while both personal and business expenses swung wildly you'd understand.

 

This is only possible, if you are the only bakery in town or one of the few (but the most reputable) or if you are the only truck in the area or your customer would trust only you with loading their freight.
Form my observation, there's hardly any time to discuss your rate justification on the spot market in both directions; when you call broker or they call you. Just like I don't listen to their "I only have 'this' much in it", they don't care how much I spent on fuel or tires.

 

hypothetically, if all other factors are equal, if there are 7 trucks within 200mi in Anytown, USA but only 2 loads, it doesn't matter what you fuel costs are, you aren't going to get a load if you aren't the cheapest 2 options. This is what is called Supply (you) and Demand (loads needing moving). The need (demand) to have product moved from one place to another drops, so does the rate regardless of any other factors in the market. They don't NEED to have it moved. I don't get why that is so hard to understand.

Also, some business advice, you should always be looking for ways to cut expenses while NOT dropping your rate below the market rate. This is called Maximizing your profit and is the point of Capitalism.