CarrierStore.com is aimed at the spot market for shipments over 3,500 pounds, up to full truckload. It was developed to match volume and truckload freight to carriers’ spot capacity. Based on conversations with founder Dan Clark, the concept differs from other exchanges in two key ways.
The shipper’s request for a quote goes directly to the carrier’s pricing department, not through sales channels. The carrier can set a freight-specific price based on its current lane density needs, reflecting actual capacity and costs at the time of the quote. Clark says the Web-based system avoids delays over repeated calls to a carrier sales department, which doesn’t fit the nature of a spot quote.
Shippers pay the carrier invoice price; carriers pay a transaction fee to CarrierStore.com.
According to Clark, as the carrier’s open capacity changes it can adjust pricing to help fill that capacity. For the shipper, pricing reflects the best market rate and a similar move may be priced differently at different times based on real time market conditions and costs. The carrier is able to control yield by pricing accurately.
Carrierstore.com has developed a list of carriers and it will run each registered shipper though a credit check.
The service launches July 7th at www.carrierstore.com.