In October, we added a powerful new integration to our Smart Capacity digital freight matching software platform. Thanks to an integration partnership with FreightWaves SONAR, you can view the average, high and low rates for specific lanes and types of freight for loads you’ve added to Smart Capacity. All that you need to take advantage of this impactful feature is a FreightWaves SONAR subscription. You can connect your existing FreightWaves SONAR subscription with Smart Capacity in a matter of seconds. If you’re not a current subscriber FreightWaves SONAR, you have the option to sign up for a free 14-day trial right in Smart Capacity.
Read on to discover how real-time SONAR rate data can drive rate negotiations that are faster and more effective.
Researching Rates Manually Takes Time
In many cases, rate negotiations aren’t necessarily based on the most up to date market data. If you’re like many freight brokers working in today’s transportation industry, your rate negotiation with a carrier or owner operator probably starts with you or the carrier proposing a price for the load. That initial proposed rate may be based on previous experience or your preferred margin on the load. There may be a counteroffer or two in the process and then often an agreement to split the difference or maybe you decide to look elsewhere.
The reality is that freight rates can be quite volatile and true market rates for specific types of lanes and loads are fluctuating all the time. To manually research market rates for every load you move is incredibly time-consuming and isn’t really practical. You need to be able to make decisions quickly on loads to meet your customers’ shipping needs without losing capacity to a competitor or making a carrier walk because you’ve pitched too low of a rate. That leaves freight brokers like you between a rock and a hard place: you need to secure capacity for your customer at a competitive price while maintaining good relationships with carriers and drivers.
Real-Time Rate Data at Your Fingertips
Trucker Tools’ integration partnership with FreightWaves SONAR puts real-time rates literally at your fingertips in Smart Capacity. With this market intelligence available on every load you broker, you know without a doubt what the current going rate is for freight in specific lanes. For each load in Smart Capacity, you can view SONAR’s current average per mile rate, as well as the average historical high and low per mile rates in that lane for that type of freight.
SONAR is FreightWaves’ Freight Data Intelligence Platform. SONAR uses the most up to date freight data collected at the point of booking to provide you with highly accurate rate insights. SONAR aggregates market data from multiple sources, including electronic tenders, TMSs, ELDs, fuel purchasing systems, BoLs, telematics and other relevant sources. FreightWaves TRAC (Trusted Rate Assessment Consortium)collects and aggregates daily spot rate data that is truly reflective of current market conditions. Armed with this information on each and every shipment, your rate negotiations with carriers can be based on real-time rates instead of last year’s rates or what you/the carrier thinks the rate or price should be.
To find out how easy it is to get real-time rate intelligence for every load you broker, read “How To Access FreightWaves SONAR Rates in Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity Platform.”
