Uber Freight?! What is this madness?!?!

From my understanding you setup with them like you would with any other brokerage. I do believe they are at least going about that the right way, unlike u-ship.

 

It's about the same, but so limited. A search for the Chicago market for tomorrow only produces 3 loads in the area. They obviously have some work to do to get established.

 

I foresee that there will be a future that side steps brokers. Not that i hate brokers, they are just trying to find a way to be useful add make a good living at it like everyone else, but there are big complaints within the trucking industry about all the cherry pickin big companies kissing broker butt to get the best paying freight. Remove brokers, and big companies will bankrupt. It will be a little guy game again, and the trucking industry will feel starved for drivers again. Naturally, the owner ops would benefit most if computers made it easy for shippers to get drivers without paying for brokers, and naturally, this would be very easy to achieve as a brokers job is way old fashioned and could have been replaced by computers a decade ago. The only reason why it hasn't happened is because people with that kind of money have power and influence, and generally use it in ways to maintain that power and influence. From buying politicians, hiring lawyers, making deals with large carriers that hurt any driver who would benefit from a "shipper direct", etc... but unfortunately for them, it's fading. There are ways to ship more efficiently while saving shippers more money, and making drivers more money. This way will continue to gain popularity as large carriers and brokers become more and more of a nuisance, and owner operator's become a better value. Uber may or may not be the one that makes it happened, it just depends on Howe greedy they get with the efficiency. Do they feel that putting a thousand brokers out of work to accomplish the same job using only 50 people, should allow 50 people to make the income of a thousand brokers? If so, neither shippers not drivers will get on board. I think the best app is the one that standardizes the industry. Minimum $/mile/ weight. Brokers are too arrogant to refuse booking freight @ 1.40 a mile or less, and then blame drivers who pull that freight because nothing else is available for them to pay their bills that are keeping them near bankruptcy. As if it's truck drivers who have the power to manipulate their own wages... in the end, I have no doubt that people are going to figure out how to take the brokers income, and divide it out between truckers and shippers for a small fee, then truck owner operator's would indeed be the ones in this industry who get to manipulate their own wages.

 

I disagree entirely. By definition negotiation is a discussion aimed at reaching an agreement. Booking freight is probably the easiest most straight forward kind of negotiation there is. If someone dislikes or frowns upon basic negotiations over a simple load I would not trust that person to be able to take on and handle anything with even more tangibles.

I'm reminded by your comments of some Facebook experts who derisively dismiss haggling as not any part of negotiations. Haggling is synonymous with negotiate. The truth is sometimes these things get ugly and both parties don't always walk away with a smile on their face. But if an agreement has been reached it was most certainly a negotiation.

 

The definition you provided, with its mathematical simplicity (making it very logical), it is hard to argue with. Before going on my own load booking, e.i. talking to brokers, I heard "You need to know how to negotiate"; "Read some books on negotiations", etc.; Well, I have not read any of those, but I cannot see to be any wiser even If I had, at least in the scope of loadboard phone talking to brokers. So it may be negotiation by the definition, but I was expecting something more of...an advanced human interaction. And now I know why; it is a simple agreement, resulting from a trivial talk. And that's' OK. I did not mean to belittle that as much as I meant to ridicule all the "necessary negotiation sicence staff" and special preparations before start booking your own loads. I just don't see any room for its deployment at this level.

 

Not anytime soon.

 

You get set up with Uber like with any broker. Get a login to the app and can start booking freight. They show the addresses for PU and DL right away, without load being booked it. Since everybody can see the addresses, I think lots of brokers and/or trucking companies will try to contact the shipper/receiver and try to get direct business.
The set rate on the app is good if you are in a dead area and just need anything to get out, however if you are in a decent area, you will look for better opportunities on DAT for example and those shippers who post on Uber will probably just sit and wonder, why nobody books their loads, without realizing that they might have to double that price (unless its Uber employees monitor the market and adjust prices accordingly)

 

Maybe I missed it earlier in the thread, do they have ltl or tl posted?

 

I can see it working well if the price adjusts automatically every bit of time. For example, every 15 minutes rate goes up 50 bucks with a cap at max rate. This would increase chances load would get taken.

 

We went through the sign up process but they don't accept a conditional safety rating. Might still try them out as a shipper though. We got some work to do...
Signing up required any and all documents you would need to do business with a broker.