There are different components that make the total cost of transportation. Due to a post Covid driver shortage, price volatility has already started several months ago. It got accelerated instrumentally when several macroeconomic events and legislative implementations arrived within the same timeframe.
The combination of phenomena which has driven up the prices of European freight transport include the shortage of equipment and drivers, rising labor costs and a sharp rise in fuel prices and other commodities. ‘Several economic instances and analysts predict that we have not reached the peak yet. We miss a common insight and certainty of which factors will regulate themselves and which ones are here to stay’, says Gianni Maes, Chief Sales Officer.
We can compare the industry with an ecosystem with several stakeholders going from Shippers over Forwarders to Carriers and their Drivers. During a lengthy period of economic prosperity there has been a huge focus on cost optimization in which the lower levels of the ecosystem have suffered the most.
As a result the profession of being a driver has become less attractive leading to a driver shortage of nearly half a million within the EU. Carriers are confronted with other increasing operating costs. Fuel prices at the pump, increased costs related to their equipment and newly implemented legal requirements compliant to the EU Mobility Package.
Due to the mid-long term uncertainty of these effects, we are convinced that only through constructive and close cooperation between Shippers and Forwarders, we can get through these challenging times. As shippers’ main concern is to keep their businesses going, we have recently seen a shift to spot shipping in order to secure capacity at the best possible price at this moment in time.
How can Redspher support Shippers and Carriers now and in the future?
On Redspher’s platform we offer Shippers direct access to our compliant and traceable carriers who offer their solutions within minutes after posting their request and the choice can be made outweighing price vs transit time.
Within Redspher’s Private Marketplace Shippers can actually add their own existing forwarders to the invited pool of vendors in order to obtain even more solutions. This month to date over 70% of all requests got more than one solution offered whilst in 84% of the cases the request also turned into a booking.
With these two business models, Redspher facilitates in a seamless manner a fast and efficient process to Shippers to know their options at the blink of an eye for their unexpected delivery needs.
