How Much does it Cost to Ship a Skid? Based on Weight or..?

I'm currently working as a Lease on O/o and receive a couple of pay settlements that are disturbing regarding the lack of accountability that they stated on the average O/o earning for each pay period. My understanding of logistics goes back 30 years when working in warehouses as a teen to obtaining my Cdl back in 2005. I obtained my experience as a trucker and in 2000 attempted becoming an O/o with my own Authority however, things didn't work out so I got a reasonable paying job as a Truck driver in the courier business. Most of my experience and understanding of palletization (process of shipping a skid and cost) would be cubing and how they charge for their rate. Everything was straightforward with weight and space being the two major factors for shipping a skid and obtaining the rate con. For example, Fedex has a calculator on their website showing how much it cost to ship from one destination to the next. On an regular 2 day Shipment delivery rate its $10,550.46 usd ($14,559.63 CAD) for just One (1) skid. The shipment I had was 9 skids, 12,000 lbs so when I break it down its traveling the same distance of 346 mi and the carrier pays me 80% of the load. But here is were the issues come into play. I received only $540 cad. I don't want to get into the currency exchange rate to much so I will keep it in Canadian currency to break it down better. Now I understand that the Shipper has to give the Broker rate and they negotiate those rates so in most cases Brokers fees are 15% to 20% which means that the Shipping rate could of been $794.12 or $843.75 (of course if the Freight Broker is legit stating they Shipped it for that rate con???...) However, when breaking it down into per mile, the Carrier made (Again, if they are keeping it real but they could be double dipping on both ends..) $675/346 = $1.95 per mi and now 'Me' the Lease on O/o @ 80% = $540/346 mi = $1.56 per mi which is NOTHING because with fuel being $5.50 per Gallon I'm not breaking even at that rate. Now Breaking that down even further per skid that's $0.173 per mile per skid (1 Skid). Yes, I understand that the shipment I got went through a 3 party etc..etc..however, even with a 4th party going by a Fedex type of rate nothing equates close to the price ratio difference!

So when a Freight Company 'Shipper' needs to get the product out fast they decide to Quote Courier companies for a 9 skid Shipment 1 skids = $14,559.63 Cad * 9 = $131,036.67 Cad vs $794.12 (0.6% Difference and a 94.4% Saving on Shipping)?? Also, obviously they will give a 25% or 40% shipping discount at that rate.

Now two things are going to happen as we enter a recession, with the majority of courier companies even with government subsidies are going belly up or rates have to increase for Carriers. Also, scams from the paid from percentage rates to Lease on O/o's will automatically have to legally be shown on paper (the Carrier I work for does NOT show what they are paid) and it only states $0.00 for their rates. Yes, I know its a scam and talking to my lawyer because the accountability on their end is not there However, how can their be a 94.4% shipping ratio difference from a Major Courier Company to Mom & Pops Carrier rate? Or the Carrier and sometimes Brokers fudging the rate con quotes?

I'm just trying to figure out what type of corruption scams are going on here!

 

It sounds like a partial instead of a LTL. Did you have other stops on the same load?

 

Yeah, it was a partial however the rate is off.

 

Rates are down and the company you are pulling for is taking cheap freight.

be a business owner not a truck driver, tell them if the rate is to low your truck won’t be pulling that freight.

Another option is find a new company to lease on to.

 

You're absolutely right. And im in the process of looking for anothrt company to haul for. This 3rd freight crap their making us wait for is a waste of fuel considering the cost rose this weekend alone.

The business just has to much people who have a corrupted mindset and extremely difficult to trust regarding their rates.

 

Why are you hauling stuff and then waiting until you get your settlement to find out what it paid?

Also curious what rate calculator you used to come up with over $100k to ship 9 pallets. Here’s the rate for 9 pallets (18k pounds) and 20 linear feet from Missoula MT to Billings MT (345 miles).

 

Good point, which is why I'm leaving because they're giving me the run around of excuses on the load rate. As for calculator for rates with Fedex I used the general one not Freight at the time trying to gauge a rate. FedEx | System Down. Regardless, my initial point was cheap freight rate oppose to others. With the change rate @ $1.37 Cad that $718 usd = $983.66 Cad so the lost is still $139.91. Its lesser.

 

they aint paying you what they charge to move it.
Pretty basic- they set the whole thing up, you truck a mixed load a part of the way, you get a little piece of the pie.

 

Ok back to your original post, did the 9 pallets come from a broker or does the company have direct customers? Either way, why didn’t they try and find another partial or two to throw on with it to bring the revenue up? Partial loads like those 9 pallets aren’t going to pay truckload rate. I go to Phoenix pretty regular and will have 4 or 5 drops on. Any one of those shipments by itself wouldn’t be enough to get me out of bed on the morning but stacking some together brings the revenue up a lot.

Maybe your carrier got full rate and is paying you like it’s a partial. Who knows? But I wouldn’t haul a load if I didn’t know ahead of time what it pays.

 

Looking at a fedex weight/class is not what everything pays, including fedex. More volume/weight per month will get you a 60% discount from that number.

 

Did you really believe that 1 skid would fetch ya close to $10k?