Most people unfortunately operate with huge misconceptions about the auto transport industry when they are shipping their car. They naturally assume that the folks that they speak with over the phone or through emails to arrange the shipment of their car or truck are the same folks that actually haul the vehicle. But this is rarely the case.
Car shipping has become a world of brokers. Ourselves included, don’t get us wrong by thinking we are against brokers, as that is exactly what we are. The hard working folks that actually operate the car carriers have a tough enough time keeping their business profitable by hauling the vehicle. It is a huge rarity for a carrier to be able to have a sales division in addition to operating the trucks, a division whose goal & purpose it is to sift through the thousands of inquiries submitted through the internet on a daily basis to locate and arrange the transport for a select group. Add to that the likelihood that among those thousands of inquiries they will quickly locate a vehicle that is currently available on any given route their truck might be on at that point and the process become like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
So how does it work?
Enter www.centraldispatch.com
This site has become THE go to place for vehicle transportation. It is only available to carriers, brokers and dealerships and basically amounts to a posting board for vehicles available.
SO…the brokerages job, if they are good at their job, is to assess and properly price any given move based on what it would take to quickly get a carrier set up once their order is posted on central dispatch. The carriers then go to central dispatch when they are filling their trucks on any given day and can search based on where they are going, for example, any vehicles going from Richmond, VA to Los Angeles, CA. If there are vehicles posted that the broker has correctly priced, then the vehicle gets picked up, and everyone is happy.
But what happens if the broker doesn’t price it correctly (Cue the ominous music…)
More on that to follow…
