hey brokers, has elogs changed business/rates etc?

It's incredibly competitive. @boredsocial can back me up on this - between carriers who can't read the instructions on a rate confirmation they signed and returned (and consequently making you look silly) and other brokers going in dirt cheap and trying to undercut your business, you always have to be on top of it. I spent an hour and a half last night talking to one of my shippers to figure out why I was losing loads that I usually did before. Turns out the front office found some guy who was undercutting me by $20-$100 (On a thousand dollars, to $3600 for shipments) and they were going to him. It's irritating, but that's part of it.

With the ELD mandate, things are only getting tighter. I can't fire up my crystal ball to tell for sure what's driving the prices this week the most (If I had to guess - Christmas, in all honesty) but yeah. That's where we're at.

 

My dad's company just started running elogs this week. All of their drivers were on paper. Now the company is having issues with getting drivers to do the loads with a system that no drivers are used to working with. So loads are failing or late for now. He gets paid per load so, he's not too happy right now.

 

You'll have to get over that if you ever dabble in reefer freight. There's a lot of reefer customers out there who are best avoided. Lineage Logistics in Louisville, KY comes to mind - under absolutely no circumstances will I ever load there again. That's among the first questions I ask about a load - who is the shipper and who is the receiver? I think just about any driver out there booking their own reefer loads would nod in agreement with me. Brokers typically don't have a problem telling it either. Most of the time around my area though I already know who the customers are just based off "city/state".

 

Yeah, different market segments. I haven't messed with reefer, in general. I tend to stick to what I'm good at. It does make sense from your end. Appreciate the heads up, on it though. One never knows where he might wind up setting up business.

 

The bad ones they post as a nearby town usually then spring the truth on you later if you fall for it

 

They sure will do that. That's usually when I give the load right back to them.

I did that very thing last week. She lied and told me it delivered anytime the next day between 7am-3pm no touch and no lumper.

Then sends me the paperwork, 4am appointment at a grocery warehouse and pay a lumper. No Thanks!! I gave it back to her, she got mad and hung up on me. LOL. Good Riddance!!

 

I don't have patience for any of that BS either and have no problem whatsoever giving back a load that isn't exactly what I was told when they sold it to me. They'll whine about it too. Sometimes questioning your integrity. As if outright misleading or lying by ommission to a driver or carrier just to get it covered is perfectly acceptable behavior. And I hang up on brokers that won't or can't give me whatever details I'm asking for. There's nothing worse than someone that doesn't know anything about the load they're pushing.

 

I am the same way, just the fact that they Lied to me is enough to make me not do their load. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, or maybe it's because I'm not nearly as broke and desperate as I once was.. Either way I don't deal with liars.

I hate that too. If you have a load, you should know what the details are, especially what the product is. I asked this girl for the details on a load the other day, she acted like I was trying to borrow money or something. Then she said what difference does it make do you want the load or not. Click!

 

To be fair, I have a customer that pays the same for a full truckload of plumbing supplies or for ten feet weighing in at 4500 lbs. It seems counterintuitive, because it is. They don't tell us what it is, all said, because "until the truck hets here, we don't know the exact amount of what's shipping."

I charge accordingly, and let you guys know as much about what I'm working with and why.

 

It's almost impossible to say. On Monday for me at least rates were perfectly normal. Of course as we get closer and closer to the actual Holiday things have gotten zany. But that happened last year as well. I'm going to be paying close attention to rates the week after New Years. Right now it's just get what you can. Trucks are booking super cheap to go straight home taking freight they normally never would... and trucks are asking (but not getting from me at least) for 3000 dollars to go anywhere from Miami. I think the latter strategy is at least as stupid as the former strategy, but all of them are oriented around the Holiday and not elogs.