How do I see Panthers' available loads?

[RLENT]

One correction to the above, Panther does not offer those loads to their own trucks before putting them on the broker board in every case and they aren't all dogs either. Some of them are excellent loads that any intelligent operator would take. Some of them are never offered to an actual Panther truck at all.

Mmmm ...... wonder how that might be ..... and how it might work ....... here's a thought (have no idea if it's close to reality or not .... well mebbe I might have some idea ... ):

Let's say you are a carrier - and you have two loads to cover. Load A is from a "normal" customer and pays full tariff rate - with the bucks you got in it, you know you'll have no problem getting it covered - either with your contracted o/o's - or if you place it on the bid board and let your partner carriers fight over it.

Load B is auto freight and was very competitively bid - there's not much money in it ..... way less than Load A.

Your "partner" carriers probably ain't gonna have a whole lot of interest in Load B at a rate you'd like to pay ...... Load A is a different story however.

So whadda ya do - feed the good paying load to one of your own contracted o/o's ..... and wind up with another load that you can't farm out to a partner ..... at least not without taking a loss ?

Or put the good load on your bid board and feed the dog load to your own contracted o/o's - that will run for a much lower rate ?

The choice could be as simple as making a little more on single load - or making a little less per load on two loads (and possibly making more overall) .... and servicing more customers.

Just some food for thought .....

Knowing a partner carrier or two .... and knowing the rates your carrier is paying them to cover loads might prove to be ...... ahh .... enlightening .....

 

[x06col]

yep. enlightining to say the least for many. guess our fact finder went into extra innings, so no report today. Lets wait him out tho. Jes like things not being like they "should", wuz lookin at ford stock the other day at $1.47. what a travesty. so.. i stopped down and opened a roth that day, an it closed today at $3.07. not bad for a week. so jes don't take things at face value anymore folks. it's all faceless.

 

[CharlesD]

Knowing a partner carrier or two .... and knowing the rates your carrier is paying them to cover loads might prove to be ...... ahh .... enlightening .....

I plead the fifth.

 

[RLENT]

yep. enlightining to say the least for many.

Of that, I'm sure ......

guess our fact finder went into extra innings, so no report today. Lets wait him out tho.

Ok .... I'll put 'er in a holding pattern .......

Whatcha wanna bet they don't grab the guy with the green eyeshade and have him break out the ledgers to 'splain it all when he drops by the home office .... ?

 

[x06col]

Nah. Prolly just give him a "gotta go" load to bfe to get him outa their hair.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Mmmm ...... wonder how that might be ..... and how it might work ....... here's a thought (have no idea if it's close to reality or not .... well mebbe I might have some idea ... ):

Let's say you are a carrier - and you have two loads to cover. Load A is from a "normal" customer and pays full tariff rate - with the bucks you got in it, you know you'll have no problem getting it covered - either with your contracted o/o's - or if you place it on the bid board and let your partner carriers fight over it.

Load B is auto freight and was very competitively bid - there's not much money in it ..... way less than Load A.

Your "partner" carriers probably ain't gonna have a whole lot of interest in Load B at a rate you'd like to pay ...... Load A is a different story however.

So whadda ya do - feed the good paying load to one of your own contracted o/o's ..... and wind up with another load that you can't farm out to a partner ..... at least not without taking a loss ?

Or put the good load on your bid board and feed the dog load to your own contracted o/o's - that will run for a much lower rate ?

The choice could be as simple as making a little more on single load - or making a little less per load on two loads (and possibly making more overall) .... and servicing more customers.

Just some food for thought .....

Knowing a partner carrier or two .... and knowing the rates your carrier is paying them to cover loads might prove to be ...... ahh .... enlightening .....

Thats exactly what happened to me....supposed to pick up and go to Cleveland Tn....got the cancel call on that one and reassigned to one going to Amana Iowa instead...got to the shipper the first load to TN was still on the dock with PANTHER written on it.....Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....they send me to BFE...and the other stays in the "zone" NOT right. mess over your own drivers?

 

[jaminjim]

Mmmm ...... wonder how that might be ..... and how it might work ....... here's a thought (have no idea if it's close to reality or not .... well mebbe I might have some idea ... ):

Let's say you are a carrier - and you have two loads to cover. Load A is from a "normal" customer and pays full tariff rate - with the bucks you got in it, you know you'll have no problem getting it covered - either with your contracted o/o's - or if you place it on the bid board and let your partner carriers fight over it.

Load B is auto freight and was very competitively bid - there's not much money in it ..... way less than Load A.

Your "partner" carriers probably ain't gonna have a whole lot of interest in Load B at a rate you'd like to pay ...... Load A is a different story however.

So whadda ya do - feed the good paying load to one of your own contracted o/o's ..... and wind up with another load that you can't farm out to a partner ..... at least not without taking a loss ?

Or put the good load on your bid board and feed the dog load to your own contracted o/o's - that will run for a much lower rate ?

The choice could be as simple as making a little more on single load - or making a little less per load on two loads (and possibly making more overall) .... and servicing more customers.

Just some food for thought .....

Knowing a partner carrier or two .... and knowing the rates your carrier is paying them to cover loads might prove to be ...... ahh .... enlightening .....

This is correct little doubt about it. The typical O/O runs for less money per load than a partner carrier would. But that only makes sense. It is the same for any carrier the
Fed, T3 State, even Bolt. It's up to the O/O that takes a dog load to make sure that a load is profitable.

It also stands to reason that PII would have more freight to put on a broker board, after all, they along with the Fed cover over half of the freight that goes on traditional expedited trucks.

The people that are willing to put in the effort required to go it on their own can be rewarded with higher pay. But there are few people willing to put their azz on the line.

 

[Tennesseahawk]

The home office won't know about the bid board. The partner carrier/broker division of Panther is located in a different building and the regular dispatchers do not really know too much about it. Good luck though.

And how do you know this? Reason I'm asking is that someone has to send loads over to the broker division. My guess is it's the dispatchers, since they're the ones handling all loads coming over the phone. Also, they tend to go back and forth with the load, trying to get it covered. If no Panther truck wants it, it goes to the broker. If they can't get a good rate from a broker, they try again to cover it with their truck. Sometimes, they fish the brokers and their drivers at the same time, then yank it off the board when a Panther truck accepts it. Or, they'll give it to a stoopid monkey carrier who bids $1.25 on it (which many do).

 

[RLENT]

And how do you know this ?

The same way he knows this little gem (not):

So don't get all bent out of shape because Bolt or some other company runs that mini run that no one else wanted.

I almost spit the soup I was eating all over my laptop when I read it ....

..... yeeeaaahh .... "mini runs" ..... right ...... jus' keep telling yourself that ...... over and over ..... all while keeping your eyes tightly closed .... and mebbe click your heels together three times while you're at it .....

I've done a bunch of them "mini's" - brokered loads from a variety of carriers ..... only trouble is, on alot of them the loaded miles were in the high 3/low 4 figures ...... yup ..... real barkers ......

 

[RLENT]

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....they send me to BFE...and the other stays in the "zone" NOT right. mess over your own drivers?

OVM - "it's just business" (as in: they're givin' ya the business - know what I mean ? )

I suppose that the real irony of it is, is that these carriers are actually farming out good work to their direct competitors ..... whereas owner-operators that are leased on to a carrier are not in competition (with the carrier they're leased to) .... pretty ironic.

 

[RLENT]

It's up to the O/O that takes a dog load to make sure that a load is profitable.

Of course it is - each individual is responsible for their own personal condition - even if many are unwilling to be held accountable for it.

The people that are willing to put in the effort required to go it on their own can be rewarded with higher pay. But there are few people willing to put their azz on the line.

I understand what you are saying - and really have no qualms with it - but I think it kinda misses the point I was trying to make - which is simply this:

The carriers have it within their power many times to offer better loads to their own O/O's (as OVM points out) - they simply choose not to do so - and give that load to a competitor instead.

Sumptin' not quite right with that picture .... but I understand why it occurs ..... afterall ...... it's just business ....

 

[OntarioVanMan]

OVM - "it's just business" (as in: they're givin' ya the business - know what I mean ? )

I suppose that the real irony of it is, is that these carriers are actually farming out good work to their direct competitors ..... whereas owner-operators that are leased on to a carrier are not in competition (with the carrier they're leased to) .... pretty ironic.

Sorry I am late checking in...they are trying to run our dogs off...run into a fishin hole of loads and trying to fish them all out....pool is pretty shallow these days.....

should be moronic....as opposed to ironic....

 

[RLENT]

should be moronic....as opposed to ironic....

Heheheh .... my thoughts exactly ......

 

[Dispatched]

Nah. Prolly just give him a "gotta go" load to bfe to get him outa their hair.

Don't look that way. Sounds like he be bizzy planning christmas parties and going on bout his pal, the infamous "Truck Tipper".

Ya know being a multi international federated fleet mgr can be awefully time consuming

 

[x06col]

Ya I know. Party plann'in L take an hour or so, then he can get back to typ'in. I see the truck tipper is inbound. We'll prolly get smore good reading one of these days. Wonder whom he'll sign on with, seems fedex didn't buy that "I wuz only going 5mph roun that corner, an it jes tipped over". But then, maybe his penalty box time is over by now.

 

[dabluzman1]

Drivers.......... non-drivers..........
some of us know how its , really know, as we are CURRENTLY driving.
some REMEMBER how they think it was.

nostalgia,
fun for when your old and not working, doesnt always hold water in the current
market place though.

i remember, in my day....yeppper

 

[rdtrpn]

The home office won't know about the bid board. The partner carrier/broker division of Panther is located in a different building and the regular dispatchers do not really know too much about it. Good luck though.

I've talked to a certain dispatcher and made knowledge of this. This dispatcher just didn't know exactly what was going on, in fact the person caught wind of it when drivers' called and asked for a certain load and passed that info onto me. I just couldn't get an answer when asking driver relations.

 

[x06col]

Ya well, it's a question that looms large. Regardless, bought fuel at memphis, in today at $1.821 with our discount. So, a good ONE, or a couple DOGS, you should still be able to do very well in this biz. IF, of course, you UNDERSTAND everything you KNOW about it.

 

[csands007]

Before this thread goes where it shouldn't I will explain what he likely making reference to.
Panther does have a web based broker board. That is accessed by "partners" (drivers or companies with their own authority) or someone with approval to enter it.
That is what the Colonel is referring to.
Much the same some of the other larger carriers have there own site for broker loads.

They do have one
Panther Expedited Services, Inc.

 

[Jefferson3000]

One correction to the above, Panther does not offer those loads to their own trucks before putting them on the broker board in every case and they aren't all dogs either. Some of them are excellent loads that any intelligent operator would take. Some of them are never offered to an actual Panther truck at all.

Now I would have no way of knowing if some loads were never offered to a contractor or not, but I do know this: They do use at times a thing called POWERSEARCH, which means that they offer it in house and to the "out-house" folks at the same time, usually because of the short time by which they have to cover it. This often happens in areas where there are not as many trucks. More often than not, the contractor will get the load. An outside carrier is not going to run it at the same rate as a contractor, having overhead that the contractor does not, and then still having to offer it to their own contracted truck as well.

So have no fear! Panther is not offering stuff to others before they offer it to their own trucks. In fact, I bid on a Panther load one time, and the dispatcher called wanting me to give my "best price." (Please insert "cheapest" when you hear "best.") He then told me he could give a contractor an incentive for less money than I offered. I then ansered that if that were so, then he should do that for the contractor.

What will you normally find on the board?
-Kansas City to Topeka (D load) picking up 2 days from now.
-A 79 mile MI to MI load picking up sometime tomorrow.
-a whopping 248 mile OH to IN load that picks up about 24 hrs from now.

The sad thing is that even after these are bid on, they will most likely remain on the board another 10 hours, hoping for someone to bid less, or for a contractor to accept it.