People must be desperate

I politely disagree,

After setting down and talking to a few places here I found out the mega bottom feeders are the ones doing the cheap freight at least in this area.

They service lanes inbound for Florida and will do about anything to get out for pennies in the thousand weight.

 

actually both are true, jb,swift, and the rest haul cheap out of black hole areas like Florida. but they made bank going down there, so when you average the trip, it comes out to a very respectable rate. whatever the market will bear, doesn't matter if it's trucking or selling pizzas or building skyscrapers, the highest rate you will ever get is what the market will bear.

 

This talk about having a good average by hauling cheap on one end...

Well here's my analogy:

Two wolves take down an elk. Wolf 1 takes his time and eats the rump, back strap, heart and liver while wolf 2 gobbles up everything he can get down his pipe in a hurry; the entrails, intestines and everything else wolf 1 didn't eat like the shoulders and ribs.

Wolf 2 says I ate more than you did.

Wolf 1 says yeh but I didn't eat the poop.

 

that's one way of looking at it, another way is it's their business plan, and if it works for them or doesn't work for them, it's absolutely none of my business or concern. and last time I checked jb hunt and swift had more profit than I had, and I'm betting more than all of us combined.

 

Yeah. Lack of information is what is killing this industry. You've got company drivers working for 23 cpm who honestly think the rest of the industry pays just as bad. Major carriers renting 6 year old Qual Comm equipment for 100 bucks/month because nobody has told them they could get better gear for 1/10 that amount.

And then newbie O/O's who don't even know there's better paying freight than 1.00/mile.

It benefits the shippers. Not even the brokers, really, because they're taking 30% (or whatever their cut is) of 1.00/mile when they could have been taking 30% of something bigger. But the shippers are rarely uninformed like the rest of us. That's why they're the ones in control of the industry right now.

 

And that is the big picture. The megas and ATA are looking long term and know that the more they drive down rates now, they will decrease their profit but they will also drive more O/O out of business, decreasing their competition long term and eventually increasing their profit when rates come back up.

 

They can't drive all of us out of business. Small companies account for about 90% of the trucks out here. There is some freight megas can't properly service and never will be able to. Instead of hauling freight their steering wheel holders can do you have to find different things so you're not having to compete against the pricing power of a thousand's truck fleet. Getting your own direct niche or even brokered freight that is a little more than ordinary freight, it can be found and profitable rates can be had. One also needs to be able to weather the downs. If you're calling on freight that someone is moving for 80 cents a mile and complaining you need to step back, take a breath and figure some other way instead of making excuses.

 

I'm guessing that it has to do with the relationship a mega has with the shipper. Maybe they're required to carry that cheap load today, in exchange for better freight next week. Probably the shipper is minimizing their risk by making the big carrier accept the good with the bad.


In the bigger picture, I think control of information is how they're managing to keep freight prices low. If I subscribed to 6 load boards, and wanted to transpose all the information from those 6 boards onto one board and offer it for free, I'm pretty sure I'd get sued for that. Each board offers a "captive audience" to the shippers who post there. The O/O's who see that board probably can't afford 20 or 30 subscriptions, and so they're looking at a limited list of options.

With better information, people would reject the cheaper freight. It's almost criminal in a way. The information should have to be made publicly available.

 

The way I read it, $1.30 is his break even point, while at $1.50, he's making 20 cents profit. Frankly, I think he's nailed it. Someone told me you can't make money on everything you touch. My argument is that I would rather dh to a better area, than pay someone to move their freight. Why encourage a dog to bite the hand that feeds it?

 

I must be doing something correct.I have one lined up for 4.00 a mile to VT.Out of VT i have one to Mass for 5.30 and then DH to Albany NY(120) for p/u to N.C at 3.00....Out of NC back to NY i snatched one for 3.10...

I do alot of sitting at home and WAIT FOR THE GOOD STUFF...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!