What would stop a carrier like Landstar or Schneider from coming in, bidding on all the loads, and rebrokering them out?

 

Or Swift, or Werner, or J B Hunt, or Stevens Transport, or Covenant, or U S Express, or....

 

or C.H. Robberson

 

Nothing, just like nothing would stop you from doing the same.

It would just make the process transparent. You would know who won the bid and you could tell how much they were skimming when they tried to broker it out.

 

And by the time you figured out all that information, the load will already be gone. Hell, most times I'm booking a load, I barely have time to confirm the mileage. Transparency is a ruse to keep motor carriers from having to worry about knowing what they are willing to haul a load for. It will do nothing to increase rates.

 

1. C'mon, I know your mind works faster than that.

2. Transparency is a virtue (at least to those of us lacking sufficient powers of deviousness) in business, government and interpersonal relationships.

3. It may not increase rates, it may even decrease them. It would bring about greater economic efficiency, something that should be desired by all the free-market types. Let the low cost producer prevail!

 

There are many of these already. They all manage to get the carriers to bid lower and lower for the freight.
It's just like when they have "live" RFQ's. The bid rate starts high,by the time it's over the rate is in the toliet.
The only thing transparent about any of these is the cost that you will do it for.

 

Why on earth would you want to bring about artificial economic efficiency?

 

ok, educate me please.
I found this one online. FreightRFQ.com
Can you give me a general overview of how the process works. I might sign up for this one just to see what it's all about, but I'd like to have a little information before I do.

 

That is just one of hundreds of "load boards" Same thing different name.Pay a fee or percentage to participate.
Online RFQ's are by invite only to qualified carriers.(in some cases open to brokers) They may have 100's of lanes and 1000's of loads per month/quarter. You have a time period to review everything and the "rate war" lasts one day. You see where your standing is as the bid progresses. Bids go by price and commitment. Very hard for a single or few trucks to compete in it.
Some RFQ's allow a percentage of a lane or percentage of the total to be brokered. Remember a common carrier has the right to use substituted service. Thats why most state that the bid is under contract authority.
In closed systems a shipper may "offer" loads to multiple carriers or tender a load to a certain carrier. Again the carrier has to be qualified to be in the system. No DOT rating,no qualification.
For a shipper to use a carrier direct loading ("e-load") is very time consuming and not pratical at all. Fielding multiple calls,wide range of rates,availibilty,qualification,ect is not worth the time involved.