With DOT Week set for September 9 – 11, we created a list of 3 ways shippers can navigate impacts to their supply chains.
Category: Industry Insights
Marketplace Update with Kevin Rutherford – Part 2: Supply
On Friday, July 10th, Convoy joined Kevin on his webinar series, Positive Matters, to discuss the current economy in regards to supply, demand, and truckload rates. In Part two of the webinar series, Kevin Rutherford and Aaron Terrazas, Convoy’s director of economic research, talked about how driver entries and exits are shaping the market, and…
Supply chain consulting from a digital freight network
Shippers sometimes worry that the use of technology in a digital freight network (DFN) takes the place of customer service with a human touch. In fact, shippers who work with Convoy have found the opposite to be true: by automating many of the mechanical, repetitive tasks across the shipment lifecycle, the team at Convoy can…
3 ways supply chain visibility can improve facility performance
Supply chain visibility gives shippers awareness of how their goods move through a supply chain. This includes tracking each shipment’s location and the facilities it passes through. It also encompasses the aggregation of data that can surface trends and anomalies, and painting the bigger picture of a supply chain’s performance. The combination of micro and…
Improving Supply Chain Resilience with Shipper Insights
Every day when your loads are picked up and dropped off at facilities around the country, how do you know which of your warehouses and distribution centers are performing well and which aren’t? For example, if one of your warehouses started experiencing higher detention rates, how quickly would you find out, and how easily could…
Asset-based Carriers: 7 Things Shippers Should Know
Asset-based carriers are trucking companies that work directly with shippers and own their equipment. Asset carriers can be a reliable partner, but this depends on how well the carrier’s capabilities align with a shipper’s freight network and transportation needs.
April Industrial Production and Retail Sales: A Window Onto the “Essential”
For many U.S. households and businesses, April forced us to think hard about what’s truly “essential”. Factory output and retail sales data reported this morning by the Federal Reserve Board and Census Bureau provide a quantitative window onto those priorities. It comes as no surprise that April was a brutal month for the U.S. economy…
5 questions shippers should be asking right now to improve quality and reduce risk.
Let’s face it, there are a lot of things outside of our control right now. Despite all the ups and downs in the freight market, there is one thing that shippers should always be sure of – and that is the quality and reliability of your freight partners. Use these five questions to check-in with…
What drives spot freight rates?
The load boards that make up the “spot market” connect shippers with carriers. Regardless of your reason for tendering spot loads, understanding the forces that drive spot freight rates is useful knowledge for any shipper.
Freight Market Outlook: Three Questions on COVID-19 Reopening and Recovery
It has been two months since President Trump declared the national state of emergency. As states begin to reopen, questions linger around what recovery means for the freight industry. In Convoy’s mid-year market outlook for 2020, we share our latest analysis on freight rates and supply chain trends, covering the following questions: How will reopening…
10 Things To Know About Traditional Freight Brokers
Freight brokers can reduce complexity for shippers by finding drivers for their loads. Learn about the strengths and weaknesses of traditional freight brokerages, and why many leading shippers are allocating more truckloads to digital freight networks.
Why every shipper should expect real-time shipment visibility
When you order a pizza, you can track its every move, from getting placed in the oven to the minute-by-minute route the delivery car takes. And it’s not just pizza giving us real-time tracking, we know the exact location of the ride-share coming to pick us up and the status of the package we ordered…
Trucking Attracted Laid-Off Workers in Past Recessions: Will it This Time?
A version of this analysis originally appeared in trucks.com. During previous recessions and regional downturns, trucking recruited workers laid off from other industries. That built freight supply just at the moment when aggregate demand was typically soft. Consider what happened during two recent downturns.[1] From the start of the Great Recession in December 2007 to…
10 Considerations for Shipping Contract, Backup, and Spot
The freight industry is undergoing unprecedented change. Market volatility is forcing transportation teams to adapt more quickly. Rising customer expectations are putting more pressure on supply chain efficiency. And as many businesses increase their focus on environmental impact, logistics teams are being tasked with contributing to the triple bottom line. Whether your goal is adaptability,…
COVID-19 Update: What Stimulus Means for Shippers and Carriers
The United States federal government has taken unprecedented steps to support the American economy in the face of the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Support to individuals and households will go a long way to sustaining consumer spending, which in turn will maintain freight demand. But policymakers have gone well beyond direct support to…
6 ways a digital freight network can help shippers during COVID-19
In its April 2020 report, Gartner advised supply chain technology leaders to explore digital freight networks and associated technologies to address current challenges and further disruptions to transportation that are caused by COVID-19. According to Gartner analyst Bart De Muynck, “Digital freight networks can help companies that are looking for real-time available capacity or looking…
March Factory Output Came in Like a Lion and Went Out Like a Lamb
For the U.S. industrial sector and freight industry March was true to its reputation: It came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. After showing modest signs of a rebound during the early months of Q1, freight demand fell to its lowest level in 3.5 years. The start and end of March…
An Owner-Operator’s Experience of the COVID-19 Crisis
Just a few weeks ago, the freight industry saw surging transactional demand as consumers flooded grocery stores for food and household supplies. Now the demand has dried up, and as FreightWaves reports, outbound tender volume is below its average for “normal times.” What do these market trends mean for truck drivers who are on the front…
The 2020 Outlook for the Freight Industry
This week Convoy hosted a webinar looking back at the key market forces driving the freight industry in 2019, and explored how unresolved questions from the past year might shape the market going into 2020. There remain substantial uncertainties about the economic outlook for the coming year. To some degree, there always are. But for…
Weekly Freight Market Update: Flowers Strain Reefer Capacity
Nationally, there were minimal changes in shipping volume and tender rejection rates. In the South, produce season has started to pick up, and we’re seeing elevated reefer tender rejection rates in both Jacksonville, Florida and Savannah, Georgia. Reefer tender rejection rates are up all along the eastern United States, including Columbia, South Carolina; Chattanooga, Tennessee;…
