Why pull cheap freight.

There is a thing called supply and demand. Certain areas of the country have a LARGE capacity of goods to ship out, but no trucks. Here, you get GOOD to GREAT rates.

In other areas, you have a LOW capacity of goods to ship out. But since you have a HIGH demand for goods delivered, you have a glut of trucks scrambling to get out. Sometimes, there can be 10 trucks for 1 load or more. You get rates that are extremely low and shippers know this. Denver and New Jersey are two markets that come to mind.

So how is it the brokers or shippers fault when it is society and their displacement of population density that sets those points of supply and demand?

Don't want cheap rates, don't go to areas where there are tons of trucks sitting.

 

I am told this everyday from ''Independants'' i know around here...I do not no alot about the Independant side of things and the ''money'' part to even know if i am truly getting ripped off at Landstar...

 

You can get a better deal than that from other places.

 

There is a world of difference between the gross rate an independant is quoted and the one a BCO gets quoted on the exact same load. Have any of you independants been mistaken for a BCO and been given their gross? You'll almost fall out of your seat and they will ask, are you BCO or approved?? gotcha, lol...It's an apples to oranges comparison. You guys question whether Landstar really gets $4.50 a mile on a flatbed (or any load really) to or from any market that they offer to a BCO, that same load might post to outside at $3.28 or less or more?? I can't count the times I've heard grumbling about the rates Landstar agents command from customers but the ones who get the job done with little fuss and do it very well, they actually do command rates like that... I've seen LS-agent-OZR comment on here before that corporate has a policy that EVERY load must make money. I suppose corporate will always get their profit on every load, now if that applies to the independant agents I do not know. It does make sense when I think to the said grumbling I mentioned. That what you or BCO gets "to the truck" will always be different the important thing here is you just get as much as you possibly can regardless if inside or out...


Now compare Landstar corporate policy, as per what Adam says, to say a CHR or TQL. CHR or TQL will bid it down cheap as possible and put the loads on trucks paying "fuel money". They do that on 95 out of a hundred loads and make a killing. Half of those 95 loads show up a day or two late, maybe a handful as desired or scheduled. They're in the hotseat with the customer.. So the pressure is on and the customer REALLY needs one of those load once in a blue moon because of all the screw up carriers. CHR or TQL will pay a great rate on those other 5 loads to make sure they get there, hopefully lol, so they effectively lost money on those loads but still made money on the whole contract. The flip side of that is I see a particular LS agency with the area code 770 who honestly seems to put CHR's TQL's of the world to shame, and yet they make a profit on every load for corporate and themselves???? Even on those rare hot ones they post up from time to time where the rate rises every 30 minutes??? I dunno.. I could be wrong about every bit of this it's just speculation and trying to lump everything into a neat little box, and maybe everything is not really so neat??? Part of my point here is the cut off the top really doesn't matter it's what you keep after all is said and done that tells the story.. You can't even really compare "to the truck" rates not even one BCO to another much less outsdie versus BCO. Everyone's costs are different. You can get a "rough" idea by comparing but what good does that do? Again, just get everything you can from every load and there you go...

 

MN Driver.It seems to me that Landstar only ''files'' the IFTA and takes care of Plates and Permits.I have been told this is pretty easy.So we have to scratch the ''paperwork'' claim...

Good Rates..Hmmmmmmmmm...Really depends were you are at and being in the right place at the right time..

Weekly Settlements...Landstar is great and 100% with this one...

14,000 Available Loads....How many are ''double posted''.How many are 3rd Party Broker loads...How many ''direct'' customers...

Cargo Ins....This is like 7,000-9,000 a year.I am sure we the BCO's are paying for this somewhere in the big scheme of things...

73% OR 65% STILL SEEMS A BIT MUCH....I conclude it should be more along the lines of 72%(L/S Trailer) and 80% (own trailer). IMO....

 

With your thought process the price will never go up. I'm just finishing bouncing home I left you some good paying 1.50 freight in tyler texas.
I told the broker they's a problem with loading? She said" no they load you real quick" I said no a problem with the money after paying over 4 dollars a gallon for fuel 1.50 isn't going to get it. I'm suprised most of you aren't smart enough to flip the old "supply and demand" game on them?
If you leave the supply on the ground they'll find the money to make it move. I bet if you ordered a peanut butter sandwich and there was only enough peanut butter for half a sandwich, you'd be ok with using a dog turd for the rest of the peanut butter? Same thought as hauling for half price isn't it?
This is why there are lots more followers than leaders.

 

I said it before landstar is a good starter company. When I first got my authority I knew nothing as to hauling freight and was glad to get some money.
I didn't know how bad they's digging into my money for a couple years. First year I hauled near 80 loads for them so for this year i've hauled ONE.
My eyes would've never been opened till one of their fine agents cheated me out of 200 dollars. After 2 1/2 years weening myself from them I can see that landstar is a true mid tier to bottom feeder company. There aren't no better than CHR and worse in some ways. Lots of there loads are double and triple brokered and double and triple posted they are equal to being a great big factoring company and that's it for those who can't or won't do their own paperwork.

 

I have heard this many many times from Independants...

 

Why would you want to have someone pay your baseplates? They pull your lease or you decide to move, pretty good chance you can't move at all until you get leased to a new company and get a new plate. So much for independence.

Weekly settlements? I got that at F2F and the carrier I am with now.

14,000 available loads? WOW. you must have to take a considerable amount of time to sort through all them. I have never checked ITS to see how many are really available to me at any one time. I am most of the time sorting through 400-900 and have a hard enough time from the decent rates I can get out of that amount.

Cargo insurance. I would be paying the bottom of that end as an Independent O/O with MY name on the side of the truck. I am sure that LS is paying a much smaller rate than that for the volume of trucks it has leased.

You willingly give the 1/3 of the load for using their trailer and such? We'll break that apart... You pay 12% for trailer rental? I won't bother repeating myself.

A little business discussion on financial cost of owning or leasing a trailer.
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...lease-a-trailer-or-buy-one-2.html#post3164551

I was paid 87% of gross at F2F. AND I had to reimburse them for my cargo insurance which was $89 per week and $8.99 for my PrePass. Effectively, about 15% of gross was their cut. By the time my annual insurance bill was totalled, it was within $1600 what I was paying F2F for cargo insurance and my outside agent for liability/physical damage than what I would have paid for being a true Independent.

You are tossing YOUR IFTA dollars into a pool. I manage my IFTA money spent and can manipulate it so my money owed/rebated is less than $50 at the end of the quarter. So if you are really DUE a rebate, and you never see that money, you are effectively subsidizing someone else who would normally OWE IFTA taxes as the end of the quarter.

That would totally make sense if LS owned all the trucks and paid ALL the fuel in them. NOT when the equipment is leased and the operating owner of said equipment is paying the fuel bill. But IFTA is $30.50 annually.

Just curious, but do you even bother to track your base price on fuel? or do you just buy it where the sign shows the lowest price around? (loaded question there too)

 

Another Landstar thread lol... The Mercer contractors really have a sweet deal on fuel tax. Mercer pays it so they just buy the cheapest pump price they can find. For someone lazy like me who fuels where it's convienient that would be great.