Another year and another season of trying to keep a supply chain resilient and ready – and trying to figure out what the year will look like. Most recently DHL Express released a survey of what hundreds of small and medium-size enterprises are planning for a 2025 that promises to be unpredictable.
Overall everyone seems pretty optimistic as to the overall performance of 2025 versus 2024. Sixty-seven percent are anticipating better performance in 2025, despite the uncertainty of...
Back in mid-November, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, at the request of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and the Small Business in Transportation Coalition, proposed a new broker transparency rule. The rule, naturally, has been met with polarized feelings.
As written, it would require all brokers, on request, to submit any records that have to do with a load within 48 hours of the request. These records must be kept electronically and can be...
2025 is around the corner. Literally, it’s in like 36 hours, and with that come New Year’s resolutions and big goals for the new year. Over here at all things Check Call, we like to abandon resolutions and goals and make predictions about what could happen in the new year. All we have to go on is vibes, hunches and a few well-educated guesses.
The first big prediction is about returns and reverse logistics. This has consistently been an area that shippers and 3PLs have struggled...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-the-2025-crystal-ball
It’s the holiday season, which means that e-commerce is on overdrive. Final-mile services have been stretched thin as people look to get packages in time for the holidays. The influx of retail spending does raise the question of what happens after the holidays. All the e-commerce shippers have to navigate the world of online shopping and returns.
Return/reverse logistics is a challenge for a lot of shippers. Consumers don’t want to pay for returns, and they want returns to be easy...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-to-everything-there-is-a-returns-season
It’s the end of the year, which is the time for best-of lists, year in review and predictions for the new year. The predictions will absolutely come before the end of the month, but before that let’s look at what the predictions were for 2024. Grade the work if you will.
The big predictions I had for 2024 at this time last year were:
A year of self-reflection in the industry: working on internal processes – what’s working, what needs help – as well as identifying pain points and...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-rating-2024-supply-chain-predictions
There are thousands of books on a myriad of personal and professional development topics, ways to close a deal, ways to be a better negotiator – you name it, there is a book somewhere about it. I’m on the hunt for the ones worth reading and committing your time to. I’ve read virtually nothing in this space, not even the infamous “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” I’m more than happy to fall on my sword and sift through the best and worst of each in our new monthly book...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-the-b2b-marketing-book-review-edition
Wednesday is the renowned Rockefeller Christmas Tree lighting. The annual production is an entire night of festive celebrations and holiday cheer for all. The tradition goes all the way back to the Great Depression in 1931. Construction workers building Rockefeller Center set up a tree at the site and adorned it with homemade decorations to boost morale and provide hope during dark times.
Fast forward to the tree-lighting ceremony of 2024 and it’s a slightly less modest affair,...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-its-time-for-the-coolest-tree-in-town-to-make-a-scene
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is back to their rulemaking ways. This time the agency has proposed a rule on broker transparency. A little history on this is that in May of 2020, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and the Small Business in Transportation Coalition petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to improve broker transparency with particular emphasis on rate visibility.
There is a lot of speculation as to what brokers margin...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-a-new-set-of-rules-for-freight-brokers
It seems that no matter how hard Dora tries, Swiper will always continue to swipe. Overhaul has released some new quarterly cargo theft data for Q3. To no one’s surprise, cargo theft numbers haven’t improved. Overall cargo theft is up 6.2% compared to Q2.
The average loss value of shipments was $176,290 in Q3 with 5.56 cargo thefts happening on an average day in the U.S.. The main type of cargo theft was pilferage (65%) which is atypical with some of the larger cargo theft trends...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-q3-data-promises-more-cargo-theft-issues-in-the-future
It’s the end of an era – the freight recession era. The rumblings have begun that this could be the beginning of better times. Not that we’re looking to repeat the market insanity of 2020, but dare I say a return to normalcy might be in our future for early 2025?
The rationale behind the view that the freight recession has ended? Well, that would be the increasing tender rejection rates. According to FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller, “Following a decisive election, I believe the...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-the-end-of-a-bad-freight-market-era