I doubt that many private carriers would, or ever did waste a couple of days of their time for a few bucks. In the time that it takes them to screw around with the back haul, they could be back at the yard and reloaded with another outbound. Do you happen to know if WalMart takes back hauls? I highly doubt they do. IMO, it is extremely difficult to do on a regular basis with any degree of efficiency.

Yes they do, they will not make their drivers wait too long before pulling them out, but yes they do some backhauls probably like 20-30%. Plus pallet returns and store returns.

Their main concern is cover some of their costs. I don't think making a profit off of a reload was a primary concern in deciding whether to take a load. They made their money on selling their product and the shipping charges that were added to the selling price. They didn't necessarily need a reload to make a profit but it did help to cover overhead.

Well I can tell you that we do not contribute to lowering rates by taking back hauls. In fact, the backhauls need to pay extremely well to make up for the extra time lost.