Bypassing the Brokers

a couple of shippers have tried that on this forum

it usually means they are not paying good rates

but i cant answer for others

as much as we may dislike brokers, brokers are there for a reason, to facilitate the movement of freight for their customers, so the customers can focus on manufacturing and the broker gets the freight moved

my first question would be, if you have had drivers already delivering to you, why have you not made this proposal to them, and if you did, why did they not accommodate your needs?

 

i am an owner operator (flatbed) but i have done brokering before paying directly to carriers saves money

 

you might look at the brokers load sheet and see if says anything about how long you have to wait to do that. and i would not do it if they still owed me money

 

I have messed with produce off and on nearly all my life. Grower, shipper, buyer,but mostly hauling. There are plenty of independent , GOOD truckers who are looking for direct connections for hauling produce, but not just to save the buyer or shipper a little money, but to also have a steady , dependable source of loads, at a reasonable rate. Splitting the brokerage helps both of you.Check your Blue Book for truckers in your area.
If you develop a following of truckers, count on them to be your eyes at the shipper / receiver. If there is a problem, and the driver has an on-going relationship with you, you can count on him to help you out. Quite often this is very valuable.
Just notice the trucks you hire from the brokers, and if they do you a good job, strike up a conversation and see if they are interested. Look for the ones with an individual's name on the side, they are usually independent owner/ operators, and can haul for just about anybody.Remember, truckers talk a lot. If you fail to live up to your part of the bargain, word will spread, and you will have trouble getting trucks.
Just be fair, do as you agree, use your gut feeling on hiring a trucker, check his insurance and his references, and you can certainly benefit.

 

for example i would tell the shipper that i can find a carrier for about $2000 but as a broker i only pay about $1600 to the carrier because like every broker i want to make money, now my father is an owner operator so time to time i book and post loads. But i booked loads for my father directly from shipper and i only asked for $2 a mile and he was very suprised because the broker that he used to do business before was charging him almost 2.5 a mile. So if you are a shipper it's cheaper to just pay directly to carriers instead of going through brokers

 

Get an account set-up with Internet Truck Stop or GetLoaded or any other load board and sign up as a direct shipper ( several shippers have done this ) and you can post the load and see what kind of response you get as well as call trucking companies with trucks posted in the area and get a rate from them. Call three trucks and ask for a rate and see if they are in the range you are looking to pay. If you go this route pay within 15 days based of an email or fax copy of the bol / pod / invoice / rate con and do not throw up a bunch of road blocks to getting a carrier paid you should do well. As jbatmick said - everyone talks in this business. Get a reputation for dragging out payments or taking 9 hours to load a truck and the reputation quickly goes downhill.