albion:
Haulage exchange is only an online clearing house.i have my own customers, don’t sub work out. Used haulage exchanges for a few months for back loads out of the continent and found it made more sense to bring them back empty. Rubbish rates, bad payment, better getting a vehicle and crew back to do some decent work.
As ever,own customer wins every time.
Dimitri, you are not listening… I suspect you have a motive, but listen to what you are being told, no established haulier will use an exchange unless desperate. you may not like what your being told , but that is the way the industry works, not online but via long term relationships built up on trust
dimitri:
I’m willing to make the following offer (almost no risk):If you have an O’ licence, trucks and trailers available we can try to open an account on a freight exchange for a month or so. I will pay their fee. And I will try to make something work out of it. It’s got to work one way or the OPPOSITE way. I will tell you what loads I find there, but if you aren’t willing to take their loads because the rates are too low, that presumes that you work for someone who pays you more than the freight exchange rates, correct?
No good to me I’m afraid, I’m engaged to provide traction and traction only and I don’t have a trailer. If I found more profitable work in sufficient quantities and at sufficiently good rates then I would buy a trailer and go off and do that instead, but I can pretty much guarantee that I wouldn’t be finding it on an internet backload site.
Dimitri, I’ve been in this job for 40 years, so I might know a bit about it. Firstly, you will never ever make even a living working from clearing houses or internet haulage exchange sites, they are basically Dutch Auctions, giving work to those who are desperate and will work for the lowest rates. Secondly, without fail, every Friday I compile my top ten customers, and without fail that accounts for a minimum of 80% of our weekly turnover. The top five is virtually always the same every week, the order might change depending on the time of year because some of our work is seasonal. Our top ten are mainly large direct customers, with a couple of blue chip hauliers who we have worked for many years and give us nailed down daily work. The other 20% of our revenue is from other smaller direct customers who might provide 3 or 4 loads weekly, and a couple of friendly hauliers we have known for years. we exchange loads with them and sub to them when we are busy. The majority of our “back loads” are for direct customers or from other hauliers I have known for years. About a third of our work is niche market work which does not require back loads because it is specialised equipment dedicated to contracted direct customers (blue chip companies). From this you will probably deduce that you need to work directly for dedicated customers for a high percentage of your work if you are to to succeed and prosper. Or the alternative is to work as a subbie for a respected company that will look after you. One such company that never gets mentioned on this site is DHL, who subs out £4 million of work every week in the UK alone. Its rates are better than many you will find advertising for subbies in the trade press. If you want a start in this business then DHL is worth a try.
If someone has high(er) paying loads than those available on freight exchanges, let’s move your loads through a freight exchange and make some money?
You will supply loads, I will do all the work on a freight exchange (posting, negotiating, vetting, checking references, licenses, safety ratings, etc) and we’ll split the profit 50-50.
Once I find a suitable contractor for a load, YOU will have a final say on whether or not to let them take the load.
dimitri:
If someone has high(er) paying loads than those available on freight exchanges, let’s move your loads through a freight exchange and make some money?You will supply loads, I will do all the work on a freight exchange (posting, negotiating, vetting, checking references, licenses, safety ratings, etc) and we’ll split the profit 50-50.
Once I find a suitable contractor for a load, YOU will have a final say on whether or not to let them take the load.
But I’ve got people to do my loads on the occasions I don’t have vehicles/drivers. And I don’t have to split my profit.
Those of us with regular customers as outlined by gingerfold and myself know broadly what assets we need to match our customers’ requirements and have established sub-contractors, with whom we have worked for many years. ( Sorry gingerfold, answering for you, but you sound much like us).
Besides the money element, why take a chance on someone you don’t have a relationship for the sake of a few quid. Personally, I often only make a small amount of money if I sub, it makes my sub-contractors happy to work with me and keeps the relationship sweet. If I could make another £100 out of a job, I’d turn the ‘opportunity’ down because I have a relationship with my subby and you can’t put a price on that. His success is my success. I’m old-school obviously.
dimitri:
If someone has high(er) paying loads than those available on freight exchanges, let’s move your loads through a freight exchange and make some money?You will supply loads, I will do all the work on a freight exchange (posting, negotiating, vetting, checking references, licenses, safety ratings, etc) and we’ll split the profit 50-50.
Once I find a suitable contractor for a load, YOU will have a final say on whether or not to let them take the load.
they are probably only getting those higher paying loads as the customer trusts they will be doing a good job, a trust that has been created over many years of never letting the customer down - if you then farm that load out to anybody for a quick profit then you won’t be getting many more good paying loads. Remember the customer is far from stupid and if they wanted a really cheap service they could have stuck their consignment on the internet.
Absolutely correct. Customer relations take years to build, but can be destroyed in an instant by an unknown subbie not turning up or similarly letting you down. With our customers it is all about service and meeting collection and delivery times and doing the job to meet all of our customers needs. Top class service is something my customers demand and I would never sub any of their work to an unknown subbie, and I most definitely would not put a load of theirs to a clearing house or on to haulage exchange. Because I know my customers’ business I know what their loading trends are over the weeks and months, and what seasonal patterns etc. are, so the number of occasions on which I cannot meet their orders frankly never happens. We always find a way to cover customers’ needs irrespective of what happens, and my drivers will always help in that respect, because they know the importance of good, reliable service.
Sorry, but to me all of it sounds very similar to what black cab drivers in London and other cities say about “unsafe” and “unknown” and “less trained” Uber drivers. But the reality is that more and more customers are choosing Uber over black cabs.
dimitri:
Sorry, but to me all of it sounds very similar to what black cab drivers in London and other cities say about “unsafe” and “unknown” and “less trained” Uber drivers. But the reality is that more and more customers are choosing Uber over black cabs.
You sir just want to argue…and as for the crap above just read about the percentage of Uber drivers running bent , Black cabs are safe , monitored and inspected and clean.
Getting back to haulage . Anyone CAN use a cheaper method…But they don’t as reliability and confidence in their haulier means more to them than the odd few quid, they have built a business on a successful business model priced correctly.
You will never find well paid proper work with quality customers with your fly but the seat of the pants attitude.
Go find another line of work before you invest your money in something you clearly have scant knowledge of
dimitri:
Sorry, but to me all of it sounds very similar to what black cab drivers in London and other cities say about “unsafe” and “unknown” and “less trained” Uber drivers. But the reality is that more and more customers are choosing Uber over black cabs.
Completely different. You don’t have a consistent working relationship with a black cab driver, it’s a completely one off transaction with someone you may never meet again, who is self-employed and has a fraction of the regulation that we contend with.
With haulage, I’ve had a 20 year relationship with my customer who trusts me to shift loads extremely hazardous loads worth several million across several countries. Ever so slightly different to hailing a cab to take you to Euston. You are missing the whole concept of trust - trust between customer and supplier and trust between co-operating hauliers.
People choose Uber because it’s cheap and they don’t understand how the low wage economy impacts the treasury and society as a whole. Are Uber drivers better off and happier than black cab drivers? Research suggests not - all that happens is that they are dropping the price till it can drop no more, to earn a pittance on top probably of another poorly paid job with the added requirement of being permanantly happy so that they can keep their ratings up.
I don’t think anyone could call me a socialist, but I do believe that people have a right to earn money and that money should not be impacted by middlemen, be they a haulage exchange or an agency. All that does is make people who don’t do real work richer by leeching off the workers whose wages are being suppressed futher in the name of efficiency.
you would think by the time several people with many decades of experience tell you the benefits of real relationships and why they are reluctant to use an exchange, that you might think there was something in it.
I would suggest the vast majority of hauliers will run a vehicle empty to service there customers than dabble with haulage exchanges.
If there was any money in these loads they would have be gobbled up by the bigger firms with economies of scale to help them.
The fact is no haulier can survive without relationships with customers.
I get the feeling that dimitri will only be happy when he receives the answer that marries up to his preconceived ideas.
It is true that for hazardous or some other specialised loads there needs to be more setup and pre-qualification. But the vast majority of freight is just regular freght - boxes, pallets, wood, and metal. And if the truck turns up and delivers on time and has GIT insurance, there’s very little else the customer may be interested in besides the price.
And currently it appears that it is possible to move loads cheaper through a freight exchange.
So, how about this: If you have customers, we’ll setup a separate entity, LLC or whatever, that will be dedicated to moving freight through freight exchanges. And the customers will know that it’s a separate new company, not the one they currently have a long term established relationship. And we will use your connections to get customers for the new company. Let see if they really value a long term relationship and are willing to pay for it. And if we don’t do it, someone else sooner or later will. It might as well be us - there’s no hiding it.
You may feel that you’d be canibalising your own business, but again, if you don’t do it someone else will. Read up on what happened to Kodak - they were the ones who invented the digital camera but they hid it to save their film business. And eventually it blew up in their face and they are gone now.
(I’m going to change my name and address because I know I’m going to be killed for the things I post here.)
dimitri:
So, how about this: If you have customers, we’ll setup a separate entity, LLC or whatever, that will be dedicated to moving freight through freight exchanges. And the customers will know that it’s a separate new company, not the one they currently have a long term established relationship. And we will use your connections to get customers for the new company. Let see if they really value a long term relationship and are willing to pay for it. And if we don’t do it, someone else sooner or later will. It might as well be us - there’s no hiding it.
How about you do it on your own?
Thank goodness i’m too specialised to carry on this conversation.
Stanleyknife - yes.
I would also suggest Dimitri has no concept how low rates are already.
Don’t feed the troll…
albion:
peirre:
I’m out …Bit fast there peirre, door caught me as I dashed to the exit.
albion:
Thank goodness i’m too specialised to carry on this conversation.
I thought you left on page 2 of this conversation?
the nodding donkey:
Don’t feed the troll…
Or Dimitri is from Haulage Exchange…