the future of load boards

I agree it would be nice to speed up some of the slower parts of booking a load. Stuff like that doesn't happen overnight . I'll tell you one nifty thing I really like is CHR's smartphone app. Never have to make a single call for load status - do all that on the app. I believe TQL has one too. But that is just a one small piece of things.

As far as bidding on loads goes. I prefer to bid on loads. Haven't done it much here lately but back in the fall was bidding on a lot of freight off sylectus. They seemed to key Bill in if my bids were too high. I never cut my bids, unless it was a crazily high bid $4+ a mile, and then only cut it around $50-$100. I missed out on several loads that with hindsight I should have taken. I've never submitted a bid and then just quit looking for freight though. If they get a lower bid they don;t just call all of the companies who submitted higher bids and say "hey we're sorry but somebody else got the load" they move on to the next load.. ..sometimes they will let you know but not often.

So if I secure another load in the meantime of them persuing thru bids well that's just how it goes.. If they're pressed for time to get a load covered they will normally accept a bid. If they've got time, what's the hurry anyways. I don;t have all day to wait on them and wouldn;t expect them to wait on me figuring up a bid to submit. I dunno I guess I just view it differently. A bid doesn't commit you to anything..

 

I purchased a house last year and did every piece of paper work via the net. Scan to PDF and E mail that simple. I would think the Trucking industry will follow. I have a portable scanner for service tickets out of my service Van, never go to the shop for time tickets or anything but safety meetings and parts anymore.

 

If this model does come about, I'll place a bid on all of the loads that I'm interested in. The first one that answers is the one I'll take. The rest will just have to deal with it. If they want me to commit to a single load by simply placing a bid, then they'll have to pay my TONU if it doesn't win. I'm not going to commit my truck to something for free that's not a sure thing. That's like me telling a broker to hold his load for me while I shop around for something better. You know that will never happen.

 

I'm wondering if some of these public loadboards, as opposed to ones owned and operated by a single brokerage like CHR's loadboard, if they have a rating system, kinda like E-Bay - where a customer can leave feedback for the seller, and vice versa, and each has a certain rating based on % of positive feedback, etc. And also, if carriers can make a sort of "profile" for themselves, where a broker or shipper can look up this carrier's profile to find more info about the carrier.

I'm all about communication and gathering as much info as possible, so I think something like this might actually work - it would weed about the bad brokers, and also the bad carriers, and I understand that the loadboard might lose some business, but this may actually be a selling point for a loadboard serious in gaining market share. I would use a loadboard like this, if there isn't one already.

 

Huge mistake if you guys started bidding on freight. Their will always be guys bidding just to drive the price down with no intention of taking the freight. Costing whoever does take it a lot of money.

Not sure why you guys think your bids aren't binding. Can you go to a car auction and once your bid is accepted as the winning bid you can pull out? I would imagine their is some sort of penalty.

 

yuuuuuuuuup!

 

yeh, the guy at the next desk with a different username!