Optimizing Your Digital Freight Matching Platform: Selecting Private or Public Bidding

Evaluating a Digital Freight Matching Platform

Many shippers evaluating a Digital Freight Matching platform debate whether to restrict their freight bidding to their existing transportation providers (“private carrier network”), put their freight out to bid to the Digital Freight Matching (DFM) platform’s network of approved transportation providers (“public carrier network”) or allow “private” and “public” bidders to participate in their freight bidding (“hybrid network”).

In this third and final installment in our “Best Practices for Optimizing Your Digital Freight Matching (DFM) Platform” series, we examine whether shippers receive more competitive bids from private or public bidders on a DFM.

For this analysis, we considered lanes where the shipper enabled “hybrid network” bidding so we could compare bids provided by a shipper’s existing private bidders to those of the public bidders pre-approved by PostBidShip, and examined high, average, and low bids submitted for each bidding.

Public Bidders’ “High” Bids are Much Higher

Public carrier network bidders’ high bids come in 33% higher, on average than the high bids of their private carrier network bidders. Public bidders submit an auction’s high bid six times more often than private bidders.

Public Bidders’ “Average” Bids are Still Significantly Higher

Public carrier network bidders’ average bids come in 13% higher, on average than the average bids of their private carrier network bidder counterparts. Public bidders submit a higher average bid twice as often as private bidders.

Low Bids are Much Closer, Public Bidders are Still Slightly Higher

Public carrier network bidders’ low bids come in 5% higher, on average than the low bids of their private carrier network bidder counterparts. When it comes to low bids, however, we see an even split between the number of loads where the public and private bidders submit the lowest bids.

Recommendations for Optimizing Your Digital Freight Matching Platform

From earlier installments in our “Best Practices for Optimizing Your Digital Freight Matching (DFM) Platform” series, we know that shippers award the low bid in 80% of freight bidding.

Download Best Practices for Optimizing Your Digital Freight Matching Platform

Since private and public bidders submit an auction’s low bid with almost equal regularity, we recommend that shippers conduct a hybrid set of bidding. Release some loads to shippers’ private carrier network and open up some for bidding by carriers outside shippers’ private network.

This will ensure shippers maximize their bid count and financial savings by supporting their carrier partners while remaining ‘connected’ to the larger market dynamics in the public carrier market.

Anecdotally, bidders tell us they offer better pricing to shippers who have them as members of their private networks (regular customers) since the relationship is deeper and beyond transactional. This likely explains the differential between private and public bidders, even among low bids.

But with the low bid coming from public bidders in nearly half of loads, we strongly encourage shippers to include bidders from our public network whenever possible.

To learn more about how PostBidShip’s Digital Freight Matching Platform can help you optimize your spot market freight bidding, please contact [email protected].

About PostBidShip

PostBidShip is a neutral digital freight matching (DFM) platform that replaces outdated workflows with quick, cost-effective, and efficient matching of loads to transportation capacity in real-time, using near-time data analytics, market indices modeling and real-time digital collaboration, benefiting both parties through an optimal mix of cost, performance, convenience and asset utilization. For further information, please visit www.postbidship.com.

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Best Practices for Optimizing Your Digital Freight Matching Platform
The purpose of this white paper is to provide best practices for optimizing the use of a digital freight matching platform in several key areas; posting lead times, transparent freight bidding, and using private or public markets. Download Now!

Why CARRIERS Need a Digital Freight Matching Platform
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