"Such a mixed bag" Topic

One of the many things I have a hand in is arranging outbound shipments, dealing with freight companies, reps and quoting truckline and LTL pick-ups, etc.

We've recently been turned on to a freight company that blows everyone else out of the water for California deliveries. Now I understand that focusing on certain areas or routes/lanes has its pricing advantages, but even the other California-oriented carriers, these guys have prices 30-60% lower.

We've used them a few times, and the pick up paperwork is quirky compared to what we are used to, but the results are the same on time, safe deliveries we've experienced with so many others.

So… I'm not really stuck, but wondering… Is it that these guys compensate their employees sub-par to the others? Or that the others have higher expenses or been, "padding" for all this time?

In today's sluggish economy, competition for the scarcer freight is getting tougher, while higher fuel and regulatory costs are putting upward pressure on rates. Cutting driver pay won't work and actually increases costs very quickly. It is too easy for a driver to change companies and once you earn a bad reputation, you have to pay more than the next guy for drivers. They may have found a niche way of moving the freight that others haven't found yet, but that advantage won't last long. More likely, they may have east bound freight that is more profitable, allowing them to cut rates one way to get more trucks to the West coast to pick it up.

I used to be involved in choosing a freight company, and was always calling around for better rates.
Some carriers just bill you by the way they always have.
And some get creative, lining up clients at both ends of the route. They come in and seek out the "guy who decides".
They work "smarter", rather than "harder".

One interesting innovation was shipping sewn automotive interior parts with full trucks to Michigan on the return route in refrigerated vans. Why "refrigerated"? Because they would make full runs to carry hog and cow livers to a dog food plant 50 miles away. We were the return route, and they DID hose out and clean the van.

Maximizing the cube might be one of their secrets – which
means you might want to check into their 'other' clients.

I was getting 40K shipments in, which consisted of 12
units (these were ATM cash repositories and were very
heavy). The carrier missed a key delivery times so we went
looking. Driver's excuse was an accident (no carrier
involvement) that had held up traffic.

When the delivery arrived, we found crushed strawberries
beneath the pallets holding our freight, pretty clear
evidence that the freight had been off-loaded and reloaded
with the fruit, then the pallets put back.

The carrier fired that driver shortly thereafter

Back when I was laid off, I went with my uncle on a half dozen "expedited" deliveries (he was an independent with his own Sprinter van), I know a BIG thing to save cash is landing a 2-way. As soon as he got the call about a delivery from X to Y he'd start calling about to the carrier reps in Y asking about any expedited returns heading back to X to get payment both directions.

Never happened when I was with him. I can tell you from experience on BOTH sides, independent expedite delivery drivers get SQUAT for the fee that the carriers charge the customer.

It is the reason he left California and went back to Ohio, could not afford to live here with such low driver pay despite sharing an apartment with his sister and receiving SSC (he's 71.)

Ed – in all my years, we've only had ONE full truckload – 14 pallets to the same destination, everything else has always been LTL, so it's expected that they would load/offload, co-mix our shipment with others, etc.

BUT – the one thing we insist on, with the reps, in the daily calls to the freight companies, multiple labels on every pallet, and prominently written on the BOL… "DO NOT STACK PALLETS."

Our bread and butter is aluminum, powdercoated and brushed stainless steel manufactured enclosures, so rubbing and scratch damage is absolutely taboo, and we pack and protect accordingly.

vitproducts.com

Some of the drive away companies have been know to play fast and loose with the rules when delivering new trailers from the factory, too. I had more than 1 new trailer delivered that you could tell had been loaded. Minor blemishes like the forklift hole through the wall tend to be noticed.

Mardaddy – the carrier in question was on an 'exclusive
use' contract. We could have shipped one unit in a
trailer and he still should not have, by contract, put
any other freight in the trailer.

IBM used to waste lots of $$ in exclusive use, both
ground and air. Heck, we chartered a 707 once to take
ONE guy, with a critical component, to repair a customer
system in Fort Worth. He carried the component as
'carry on' luggage.