When you’re shipping freight, especially frequently it’s easy to want to make a carrier decision based on pricing. We understand, you’ve got budgets and perhaps your boss wants to find the lowest price possible. But, typically like most things in life, sometimes cheap quotes can be too good to be true and the cheapest carrier does not always provide a great service, which can be crucial! Now, let’s be clear from the get go, we’re also not saying that the most expensive carrier will be the best option either. Because quite simply, mistakes happen to anyone, we’re all human. And just because a carrier charges the most, doesn’t automatically make them good at what they do. However, we’ve found that carriers who prioritize quantity of shipments (most often are the low quoting) tend to sacrifice quality of service.

At PEI, we’re not always the lowest priced and we don’t always partner with the cheapest carrier. If you’re trying to run a reliable business, then perhaps you shouldn’t either. Let’s take a look at why…

1. Cheap On Paper, More Expensive In The Long Run 💰

Imagine you’re shipping an expensive piece of machinery. You shop around, gather a few quotes and one carrier in particular stands out because they’ve offered you the lowest quote. You’re happy, your boss is happy, no questions asked. But what’s the catch? Perhaps they don’t call to confirm pick up times, they show up late, damage the cargo through mishandling, lose the BOL, you name it, we’ve seen it. But these can all have a knock-on effect to your customers and their businesses. The shipment could be delayed, damages might be significant enough to need repairs and in the cases on an example like this, a factory might have to shut down a production line for two days.

That $200 you might have saved on transportation costs with this carrier? Has just turned into costing you a $2000 rush replacement, a lost customer, and bad reviews leading to a strained reputation. So, what you might have thought was the cheapest carrier option, could end up costing you more and not only in $$$, but your reputation too.

2. Lower Prices Often Equate To Less Flexibility 💪

Carriers that quote the cheapest, usually work in the numbers game business model. Meaning, they’re quantity over quality, most of the time they’re booked up with back to back, tight schedules and zero slack. So, if you book through them and need to change a pick up time for example, the likelihood is, you either can’t or your freight might get delayed for longer than you intend. So then not only is your freight being delivered at an unsuitable time, but you will also probably encounter a reschedule fee on top of this too.

3. Spend A Little, Expect A Little 🤔

“You get what you pay for” is a quote long used and it fits into this blog just perfectly. You cannot pay a little and expect the world, it just won’t happen. Typically in order for a carrier to offer low pricing, they need to cut corners somewhere, some ways they do this is by hiring drivers with little experience or by underpaying workers that have substantial experience. Each of these scenarios, can lead to poor service.

Inexperienced drivers might not mean to, but due to lack of experience and knowledge could cause damage to freight or might cause delays. And on the other hand, have you ever been in a job that you’re fully qualified for, and felt underpaid? If you have, then you’ll know that it’s hard to put your all into something that you’re not appropriately compensated for. It’s easy for underpaid staff to become fed up, and whether it’s conciously or subconciously it’s tempting for them to then underperform.

4. Little Customer Service 😞

Should you run into a problem, the normal thing to do is contact customer services right? A ton of carriers tend to not have a great communication line between themselves and customers. It could be due to another way of cutting corners, by hiring less customer service staff, but, for you it could mean firing away email after email just to get no response or be kept on hold for what feels like hours!

But, businesses like us at PEI prioritize our customers and want them to all have a fantastic experience, you can contact us 24/7/365 by telephone and speak to a member of our team, always.

Disclaimer ‼️

We don’t want to come across like we’re tarnishing carriers with the same brush! Sometimes, cheaper quotes come from younger businesses, perhaps they’re trying to build a book of business and can be more competitive on price, this doesn’t mean they’re going to be bad. In fact, it could mean the polar opposite, if they’re trying to build a reputation they will go above and beyond!

We’ve seen first hand “cheaper carriers” excel in deliveries of some really difficult cargo. While we’ve also seen the opposite with the more “expensive” carriers too, the ones that charge a lot and deliver a little. We’re speaking very generally in this blog and talking from experiences we’ve heard of. But you can have good and bad experiences with any carrier, no matter how much they charge. So please don’t forget that and don’t automatically think anyone who quotes you a cheaper price will not care and not perform adequately. It’s not always the case! Do your du-diligence before working with a carrier and always check out reviews.

In fact, here are some helpful pointers to choosing a good carrier ⬇️

Here Are Some Things To Look For In A Good Carrier 👀

At PEI when we’re vetting a carrier to partner with, these are some of the key things we look at:

1. Damage Rates – Damage rates should be less than 1% of shipments, some carriers average around 0.3% whereas others sit at around a 2% damage rate.

2.Distribution And Hand Offs – More hand overs directly correlates with more risk of damages and freight going missing.

3.Accessorial Charges – Know what services come at an extra charge. You might think you have a cheap quote, until the final bill comes through and you see all extras incurred fees and suddenly, you’re paying more than what was quoted by others.

4.On Time Performance – Ask the consistency of correct pick up and delivery times to get an understanding of their on time performance.

5.Specialized Service – Most carriers have their own specialities, where they work better with one type of freight than another, which is fine. But, make sure whoever you choose as your carrier specializes in your type of freight.

Of course we also take into consideration pricing, but we put heavy emphasis on these factors too, this way we can avoid costly issues and pricing surprises for ourselves and our customers.

The Cheapest Carrier Isn’t Always The Worst, But They’re A Gamble 🎲

Like we said in our disclaimer above, we didn’t write this blog to bad mouth the cheapest carriers. There are times where the carriers that quoted the lowest-rates, get the job done just fine, and everyone’s happy. We also do sometimes see, very good carriers quoting really competitive, low rates when they really want the work, or during low demand seasons. However, when the stakes are high, you’re shipping high-value or fragile freight, you’ve got tight deadlines, and you need extra services. The lowest bidder sometimes cannot offer or deliver the level of service you need.

We believe that your freight deserves more than a “good enough” service, especially since we mainly deal with specializied freight, we NEVER cut corners and we’re always completely transparent on costs.

If you’ve experienced any of the above complications with the cheapest carrier and you’ve ended up paying more in the long run, then we’re sorry to hear that you’ve had this experience. We’d love to become your new shipping partner and show you that shipping freight can be straight forward and cost effective with the right partner.

Get in touch on: Phone: 888-SHIP-911 or use the link below…

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At PEI, we’re experts in dealing with specialized freight and can handle yours with any custom requirements.