TransportFool

AutoTransMart has jumped in to try to offer a service that is tailored to the car dealer crowd. They have even built a program that will try to split large lists of vehicles into loadable loads for a 10-car stinger and are looking at the possibility of offering 7-car highmount loads if the demand is there. Right now it looks to me like there is more of a challenge to put together orders into a load than to split orders. I’m seeing dealers buying less and from more locations due to the prevalence of on-line sales now coupled with the slowdown in vehicle sales.

The press release from Central dispatch has confirmed my suspicions. The reason they would not allow EZDispatch to download loads from the assignment page is that they have launched a competitor to Ezdispatch and want to have that as a market advantage. Brokers have reason to be wary of the assignment page but I don’t really see any risk to the carrier unless Central gets connected to a particular carrier

A while back I complained that Central Dispatch would not allow a connection from the assignment page on Central to the carrier’s EZDispatch progam. Now that very feature is at the center of an allegation that Central Dispatch is mining Carrier/Broker data to use as sales leads. Now I am glad I didn’t get involved in that one! I will just wait and see how this one shakes out. These are some really serious allegations but unfortunately almost impossible to prove. Here is a partial quote from the Autohauler Shopper forums:

by TonyUFN on Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:43 pm

If you are using Central Dispatch for your loads, this is something that you might not be aware of. There have been several conversations with brokers & carriers that suggest that there is a little more than dispatching going on here.

When speaking with a broker, it has become a suspicion that Central Dispatch it soliciting the customers. Maybe this has happened on one of your loads and you noticed something fishy about it.

When you ask a broker on CD to dispatch the load to you on Central, the information on the dispatch gets filled in by the broker, with Origination and Destination information. It is obvious that the information is sitting within Centrals database. Now realize that Central now has direct access to the customer information. Here is the suspicion…

Central now solicits the customer(typically a dealership) for an account on CD thereby bypassing the broker completely.

Back on October 7th I reported on Central Dispatch’s new focus to go after dealers directly and Tony’s post seems to simply lay out what looks like a very easy path to get there!

In a press release put out yesterday by Central Dispatch they announced that they have signed up their 2000th dealer. This will be applauded by some and boo-ed by others but at a time when carriers are struggling to bear the burdensome fuel costs it may be a beneficial move for the industry. I titled it as a bold move because Central Dispatch was built on a carrier/broker model and this represents a shift to a carrier/customer model.

Joe L. Says:

In doing so they have really ruined the site for the Owner-Ops. The dealers post cars for next to nothing prices and anyone else that posts cars to Central follows suit. In my opinion that was the worst move that Central could have ever done. Not only are they going to put the Owner-Ops out of business, they are going to put themselves out of business as well. Dealers seem to forget…without transporters they will never get their freight from place to another. We cannot afford to keep hauling freight at these rates. If Central really cared about the transporters they would have never let dealers onto the site. But it all comes down to one thing…the all mighty dollar. But I guess Central’s executives didn’t plan for the long term, and that all mighty dollar greed will catch up with them in due time.