Commission based platforms damaging transport

Commission driven platforms are killing the industry.

This is really something I want to put out there, not only for transporters but also the customers, because in the transport industry and haulage we seem to have a HUGE issue which is really effecting not only businesses but the consumers. Should I also add it is putting consumers at massive risk potentially with insurances and damages.

The model

Within the transportation industry itself we have what is called a ‘backload’ so we are moving a car say from London down to cornwall, we want to come home that day so we take on a load back home with us to make up our overall earnings into something of decent proportion. Finding these jobs we used many shipping platforms who connect say us the business with the customer which is great, it can really help us out – However these platforms are widely known for charging a ‘fee’ to the customer and in most cases it is 30% so we would bid say £250 for the job but the customer would see this as £325 and be asked to make a deposit of £75 and the rest of the money goes to the Company itself.

Loss to Companies

Let’s agree no Company will work for free and obtaining the client does cost money, however I see no justification for a 30% charge on every single job, each day 1 truck alone would loose £100-£130 depending on the job sizes and based on the average daily earnings. To put this into perspective that is nearly £3000 per month per truck which totals £36,000 PER YEAR. That is enough to contribute near a full wage for a driver being taken out from earnings and the effects of this are massive, let me explain why.

Price driving down

Because the customers themselves do not understand this they think they are paying a ‘fair rate’ when in reality they really are once the fees are added, in fact the jobs are at excellent rates however because of the fees the prices are diving down extremely in order for people to get the work and automatically the fee is lost to the platform so no matter what you are automatically starting from a bottom rate.

Now do you really want your Companies suffering these losses ? The effects are huge, the cost of keeping a truck on the road per year can easy reach £5000-£10,000, loosing this much to a platform itself can really keep them on the ‘breadline’ and struggle to even maintain their trucks or trailers.

Insurance

The fact is many of these platforms house many average joes and their little truck who very rarely are legally insured, I have witnessed many trucks and clients cars on the back impounded due to this, the risk of using such platforms are the above, if the transporter is not legally insured your car can become near impossible to recover from an impound, this is a massive issue – Working for these rates after loosing 30% a year is extremely hard and damaging, to have the correct insurance costs a fortune to say the least.

Customer satisfaction

Now do you think an individual working 12 hours + a day who is loosing 30% is that bothered about quality of care to the consumer? Or they want to make you as happy as they would earning a real wage? Loosing this much money also effects the customers satisfaction with the job because of the negative feelings the drivers already have about the losses and fees from these platforms. Paying correctly to the business keeps everyone happy which in turn makes the transporter more eager to keep the consumer happy.

Why our model works?

Our vision and model is based off Companies paying a small membership each month and the customer paying an extremely small fee (£5) in comparison to 30%, sadly for us to obtain the customers we have to run marketing campaigns which can cost £15,000-£30,000 per month and a membership fee covers this, not only that there is no massive fees taken out of the jobs and as such Companies will be saving £35,000 per year per truck, we only intend to charge per account and not per truck. Greed has come to these Companies on extreme levels and it is time to bring this to an end. I hope the customer can begin to understand just a little bit on the effects and take action.

After over 10 years experience in the industry I decided to build the new platform in order to go to war directly with these websites and change the industry for the better, drivers on good rates and customers getting their fair price with no additional costs.