85 | 2026 Q2 Freight Market Forecast

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Capacity does not seem to be keeping up with the demand. [00:00:02] Speaker B: I believe that these things will start to calm down before we get into like the real meat of produce. [00:00:07] Speaker A: I remember those days. Taking it home with you. This is unbearable. I can't handle it. [00:00:13] Speaker B: We were pretty cautiously optimistic with our clients going into this year, right? We were pretty clear that, hey, we don't think you should see huge disruptions. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Andrew lynch coming to you to talk about Q2 freight market. How we doing, Andrew? [00:00:25] Speaker B: We're doing great. Excited to be here. [00:00:28] Speaker A: Calling all CPG shippers, truckers and logistics pros. Welcome to the Truck yeah Podcast. Your ultimate cheat code for smarter shipping, smoother logistics, and dominating the shelf where it matters most. Buckle up. It's time to learn, laugh and get your freight on. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Zipline Logistics podcast. My name is Jesse Jewett. I am running the show so solo today, but I've got a special guest, a recurring guest, founder Andrew lynch coming to you to talk about Q2 freight market. How we doing, Andrew? [00:01:08] Speaker B: We're doing great. We're doing great. Excited to be here. Really sad to not have Teddy with us to help carry the conversation, but we're gonna, we're gonna power through. [00:01:17] Speaker A: We're gonna power through. Candidly, we're coming back from a great trade show, Expo west out in Anaheim, California. Of the seven folks that went there, six of us got something on the flight or at the show. There's a. I think there's like 75,000 people there or something like that. [00:01:34] Speaker B: I think it's bigger. Definitely not Covid though, right? [00:01:36] Speaker A: Not Covid. That is confirmed. It's been, it's varied, which is nice. Everyone's had something a little bit different. I had sinuses. Ted, he's got a sore throat. Other people have stomach issues. It's great. But enough of that. The show was awesome. We had a great time. We're talking Q2. We were headed into Q1. I think we predicted some slight upheaval and it was wild. [00:02:01] Speaker B: It got hot. [00:02:02] Speaker A: It got hot. Just to recap, we definitely talked about the non domiciled CDL initiatives heading into kind of the holiday season. We had a great Black Friday as far as consumer spending that was above predictions and that kind of carried us the. The wind was in the sails as far as volumes and lack of capacity was concerned. And at the right before Christmas and New Year's. And then as it does, the weather hits in January and that caused continued disruption. And initially that's what a lot of folks Were talking about in the beginning of January that like ah, this is weather, it's going to reset after a week and it didn't. Right. We were seeing rejection rates on an, on a macro level increase. I think most of 2025 it was hovering around 4 to 5%, maybe even less than that and has been like that for probably two and a half, three years and it spiked to 10 and then we saw it go to 12 and we saw it spiked to 14. So the weather dissipated a little bit and then it hit again about a week or two later. So that caused some more disruption. And again February usually cools down the, the freight volumes are down in February. That's typically. You've been in the business a long time. Typically not a very hot month as far as volumes are concerned. But we started to seeing that trend increase. A lot of it based I think there's differing opinions on where but most of that was pointing into like the Midwest or the quote unquote rust belt if you will. Like a lot of manufacturing, not a lot of imports from what I have read. And here we are heading towards the end of quarter one and those rejection rates are still above 12%. And capacity does not seem to be keeping up with the demand. In fact, I think there's potential that it's departing faster and people are just trying to adjust. [00:04:08] Speaker B: And it seems like there might be new and interesting regulations coming down the pipe that'll. That'll put even more pressure on the system. [00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think it's specifically on our show notes, but the Delilah bill or law. Yeah, that was a good lesson for me. I don't have a. What was the. This show conjunction junction or just a bill? Well, I can't think of it. I don't know why I can't think of it. What's the show? [00:04:32] Speaker B: I don't know. I can't remember what you're talking about. I know, I know what you're talking about, but I can't remember. [00:04:35] Speaker A: I'm just a bill. [00:04:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:37] Speaker A: Here I am in Capitol Hill. But anyways, I read that article Delilah's Law and it was interesting. So, and I've, I've talked about this with a lot of customers, certainly with our team on the floor and we are going way off topic but it, it makes sense. So the current initiatives are just that right there, there's laws, but they're just, hey, let's focus on this. We're going to make a difference. This is our administration. We can do what we want. We're Going to focus on non domic sales cdls. Again I've said regardless of what you think about the other tactics, it's a focus and there's some validity to it, right? [00:05:12] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:05:13] Speaker A: Like 70,000 pound missiles going down the highway should probably have people that can understand the signs and they need to [00:05:20] Speaker B: be very well regulated. 100 yeah. I don't think it'd be hard to argue against that. [00:05:24] Speaker A: So but this Delilah's law is could or bill that could become a law changes the game. [00:05:33] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:33] Speaker A: That doesn't allow a new administration to come in and disregard it. It becomes a law. Now everyone has to follow the rules. Right. What I thought so I thought that was an interesting kind of play. [00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and, and whether or not it leads to like an instant fleshing out of, of capacity, what it does is create a, it creates a cooling effect. Right. For new capacity. And we all know just how transient capacity is. Right. It's extremely elastic. It ebbs and flows with markets. People flow into this industry out of other industries. They flow into this industry out of other countries. And when you take away those options for a significant demographic of folks that are current participants, you're going to affect what the long term trajectory of capacity growth looks like and you're going to affect that elasticity. And I think that that's for those of us that participate in this space. It's a good thing. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:28] Speaker B: It, there's a, there are enough variables in this business as it is. Right. Whether you know, it's fuel, whether it's demand, whether it's weather, wpa that we don't necessarily need there to be this relative black box on what on earth is going on with this supply side. Right. And to have a decades long argument about there being a driver shortage only to turn around and find the, find the largest driver overhang in the history of any industry. [00:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah. At the worst time. [00:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. At the worst possible time was a pretty painful lesson for all of us. And so again, you know, your point being politically agnostic about how these things are done, that the regulation is, is critical and control of this population is critical. And with regard to, to what we've seen so far, I, I, I do think that we can, I think that we can control our focus around like the hype machine that says hey, the good times for shippers are over and your life's about to get turned upside down and welcome back to 2021. Because I don't think that that's, at least from what I can see, that's not what's going on. I think that we've referenced this several times over the years. I know on client calls, but certainly in these, in these podcasts that when you have an environment where trucking companies and brokers are operating at not just the razor thin margins that they always operate at, but, but really below their costs in a lot of cases, relationships with drivers and relationships with carriers, you can have the best relationship in the world. If someone's losing money doing business with you and they have an opportunity to make money, they, they are honor bound or however you want to see it to take that opportunity. They have to. And I don't know that I see the, the demand cycle being all that different right now than what we thought it was going to look like going into this year. And I don't even know that the supply side is all that different than we thought it was going to be this year. What we have seen really clearly is that when these opportunities to capitalize come up, every single participant has got to do their part to bring home the bacon for their, for their people, for their families, for their employees. And that's just the nature of the space that we're in right now. I do think that we're going to continue to see market improvement. I still, we were pretty cautiously optimistic with our clients going into this year. Right. We were pretty clear that, hey, we don't think you should see huge disruptions. A lot of that is because of how they engage with us. [00:09:11] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:12] Speaker B: They trust us to know that it's service first and everything else tied for second. And so they're really safe. And, and I, but I do think that that messaging can persist even beyond the confines of zipline, that you, you shouldn't. If you've been managing your business the right way and your relationships with your providers the right way. If you have partners, you shouldn't see massive swings in your, in your, in your costs over, over a long enough timeline. There will be periods where, yeah, you're gonna have a tough week or a tough month because you have to orient towards service. By and large, it shouldn't be like a budget buster year. [00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, there's, we definitely had, have had a podcast about controlling the controllables. Excuse me, the folks that do that really, really well. Lead time, flexibility, as you said, partnership, consolidation, all those things working together, transparency, et cetera, et cetera. You're absolutely right. That's gonna allow a carrier partner like us to develop solutions and again, figure out the best way to move the frayed and, and understand where they can Cut, not necessarily cut costs, but get the best bang for the buck if you will. [00:10:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Value, right. We've always talked to, I think we've, we've always emphasized talking about value, not cost because that's what people, I think at the end of the day really that's what their touchstone is. And unfortunately for us, the last few years have, have created a marketplace where people could make outlandish promises on the, on the back of not, not necessarily well vetted networks or not really well vetted processes or well developed processes and they could keep those promises because it was fish in a barrel. Right. To move freight. Yeah. I think that, that you find out who's been swimming naked when the tide goes out. Right. And this is one of those times. Right. And, and I think that the extent that, that our partners know, know how securely tied our, our trunks have been, but it's, there's gonna be, there's gonna be challenges ahead for folks that were really playing the game. [00:11:27] Speaker A: We're already seeing it. Yeah. [00:11:28] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. [00:11:29] Speaker A: It's, it's timing is everything in this business and a lot of businesses, but certainly we're seeing some, some struggles and it's market driven in a lot of places. It's when did the RFP go live? What type of conversations are you having? Are you again being proactive with your tender rejections or understanding how deep in the routing guide you're going to go? So it's been fun, it's been challenging, but it is, it makes you appreciate the folks who do understand it and who do are asking the right questions or are asking the, the important details on the why and the story of it all versus just being like what, 1200 to 1400. [00:12:22] Speaker B: What the heck? WTF? [00:12:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Well we, we were touching on that earlier and it's funny when, when I was out on the floor chatting a little bit ago, we were, I was talking to one of our, our sales guys about just how, how new, how, how few people I think in the dis. In the, in the day to day decision making role right now have ever seen a healthy freight market. And I buy healthy on both sides of that, of that ball. Right. Because no one would describe the COVID freight market as healthy. And right from our seat it was quite healthy. But for most people it was not. And certainly the last three years have been resoundingly unhealthy for everybody not on the shipper side. And what is that? When I think about who that person is over my 20ish years of working in freight, it Was usually someone who was relatively new to an operation. Relatively new. An organization hitting the button on tendering out, freight managing some relationships. Yeah, there's a really different world coming for that person. Right. That person that was in that seat in 2019 is probably not there anymore. Probably Mina moved up and moved out. Which career paths good. Come to their senses. But, but yeah. So I think that, that as far as where like there's potential for a lot of extra friction, I think that that is one of the places that I don't think is being really fully thought through. [00:13:50] Speaker A: That there's a lack of experience. [00:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's gonna, and, and so when I think about us and, and what can we do again, most of our client relationships are, are, are deep and partner driven and we're really communicative kind of all the time. But to the extent that you have someone who's young and relatively green and maybe not even that green, even if somebody's been in the seat for four or five years, it's really important to be able to show up with an eye towards education and to be able to walk through that. Hey man, this next few quarters, if things get bad again, look, maybe fourth quarter things start getting real hairy if you really don't have your stuff together. But yeah, but I, I, I don't think it, it should be like that. Punishing I guess. I, I, I hope I'm not wrong about that. But that almost to be able to, to be like therapeutic for this person, like hey, this isn't going to always be this way. Right. There's going to be a storm here. It's going to get really bumpy here. Yeah, it's going to get, it's going to be bumpy. Yeah. For a little while here. But look that we all know that, that those weather delays, these weather disruptions, when they happen, they take weeks to flesh out. [00:15:01] Speaker A: Yep. [00:15:02] Speaker B: We had serious ones. You know that, that January freeze was absolutely no joke. [00:15:08] Speaker A: Three days off of school here in Columbus, Ohio. Andrew. [00:15:11] Speaker B: Not great, not great whatsoever for anything. What, what percentage of homes have like freeze damage? It was disastrous across the board and that that's a way bigger disruption than, than it gets felt in the moment. And so I think as we see these things start to start to unwind and granted they are going to unwind. Right. As we roll into produce season which [00:15:33] Speaker A: we're going to touch on, it'd be [00:15:34] Speaker B: a topic its own thing. But I do, I do believe that we're still in that like relative equilibrium type of zone and that and that and that look, people should expect little disruptions to be massively disruptive because of just how again how desperate the market is for, for some black ink. But, but I, I don't think that right now you should, you should call like a permanent direction. [00:16:01] Speaker A: Agreed. One final thought we were talking about that Delilah's bill. I thought it was interesting a take on it was. Well I don't know the full number. I'm going to get it wrong. So I'm not even going to give the numbers. But it was basically like 20% of the capacity if that was passed could be in jeopardy of essentially being illegal. Yeah right. And the counter was that alone. Like imagine if it was removed 20% and one person was saying or an online prognosticator was suggesting like and that's when the freight market will get really exciting and like the rates are going to go through the roof and yada yada. Which may be true. However like the downside is that allows similar to what we saw in Covid the entry of people who aren't trained that like again you got to have a plan in place that like it's one thing to say get rid of all this capacity because they're unsafe or etc or illegal and not allowed to be here etc. But you can't just then replace them with no move the training up. Instead of being 90 days, let's make it 47 or whatever. Like there's some things that you. [00:17:18] Speaker B: Good reference right there can't. [00:17:20] Speaker A: That shouldn't be taken for granted there. And it's important to. Again let's focus on the reg. You're right. Regulation is important and the safety is, is super important. So like there's a little bit more to flesh out and as far as the execution of it. Yeah I thought was important. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Well if you want to get, if you want to terrify yourself. So right, imagine, imagine that scenario right where we get back to a place where there is a like massive influx of new supply because the rates in, in. In trucking are just so attractive. [00:17:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:55] Speaker B: And then layer on how much communication and decision making capacity is being pushed to AI right right now and how focused people are on not touching their freight. Which what a weird thing to be proud of in my opinion. Yeah that, that, that is what like really frightens me. Right Is that that there is so much discernment happening on the front line with a really good capacity team. Like and I'm not on AI like obviously. Yeah, we all need to be more efficient. We all need to be more Productive. We all need to use the tools to the best of our ability. But like there's also like a level of, of kind of commoditization and ubiquity that happens with some of these tools where it becomes, it becomes a have to have, it becomes. Because everybody else is whatever. Dropping. Yeah. And, and look, if people are going to drop their, their, their prices because they're going to claim that their cost bases down, which we all know is bullshit, but then you've got to operate in kind. And I just, I don't want to see the, the, the really, really critically important part of this business that is vetting for quality. That just is not very easy for an AI to do. Right. Outside of the quantitative. And if I know, Jesse, you were here when CSA scores were a part of. [00:19:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:21] Speaker B: When those were required. The data sucks. It's bad. I mean. [00:19:25] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:25] Speaker B: It's like 10% of carriers have active data. [00:19:28] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:29] Speaker B: So when it comes to purely using quality or quantitative data to qualify carrier, it's not possible. Right. So you're either Talking about losing 20% of the marketplace and then having an influx of carriers that come in and then only being able to, to properly vet 4 or 5% of those carriers. [00:19:49] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:49] Speaker B: So yeah, I do think that it creates a precarious environment. [00:19:54] Speaker A: A challenge. Yeah, for sure. Well, I'm glad we walked through that. Delilah's bill. Yeah. [00:20:01] Speaker B: Talk. [00:20:01] Speaker A: We'll, we'll see in the Q4 2027 update when that actually gets passed. [00:20:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And we're, we're all freaking out. [00:20:09] Speaker A: Yeah, we're gonna head into a typical Q2. Right. There's some, some highlights, some interesting developments in Q2 that are a bit different from other quarters out there. So produce season typically starts in the Southeast. That's mid spring, we'll call it, I think we used to call it tax day through July 4th. Basically the CVSA blitz weeks. So there's an international road check in May. That's when those, those 10 numbers get accomplished. And in heavy duty they maybe they jump up to 15 where the enforcers or the Department of Transportation is out on the road verifying our, our truck drivers are following all the right protocols. And then we do still have some potential weather heading into Q2. We're seeing it again. Columbus, Ohio. Classic false flag spring where, hey, it's 60 degrees. Let's go, baby. And then two days later, it's snowing and freezing. [00:21:12] Speaker B: Soul crusher. Yeah. [00:21:14] Speaker A: So those are all can be bumpy, right? Yeah, I think it's been interesting the last Few years, produce hasn't really, quote, unquote, popped. [00:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:25] Speaker A: If you will. When, when you say, you talked about equilibrium. Right. And when, when it is in equilibrium, we're closer here or now than we have been in a while. When you do have a 20% increase in outbound Miami reefer loads. Okay. That's going to change things. Right. So we'll see how that plays out this year. [00:21:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I. Look, I think that if I were, if I were in a planning role right now, I would be looking at the winter storm response as a bit of a canary in the coal mine for what's going to happen. I think that there's probably a decent enough amount of slack in the marketplace that you're going to have the very hot. You're gonna have those very hot markets where it's like, look, the freight just is not gonna move. [00:22:16] Speaker A: Right. We're already seeing it right now. So, like, we have a customer that ships outbound Arkansas refrigerated product. And I, I mentioned the rejection rates between 10 and 15%. It was 50% at one point. And there was like 2, 500 loads to 60 trucks in the area or something like that. [00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And. [00:22:40] Speaker A: And the closest bigger markets, Memphis, are over 100 miles away. [00:22:45] Speaker B: So you're buying a truck at that point. Right. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Correct. [00:22:48] Speaker B: It's just, how bad does it have to move? [00:22:50] Speaker A: Right. We'll see if we get there. I think some other customers we've talked about, like, this just doesn't make any sense. If I have to pay $10,000 for $5,000 worth of product on my truck. It doesn't. [00:23:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:01] Speaker A: I'll just hold out and talk to my customer, deal with it. That makes a lot of sense. So again, like you said, it. It'll be interesting with the weather that probably was longer. The disruption was longer than normal. Yeah. Or longer than it has been the last three years. That if we see that'll take effect in produce. So, like, maybe Miami was hot for a week or a week or two. It might be three or four this year. Yeah. [00:23:29] Speaker B: And look, I mean, I think you do have to take a cumulative viewpoint on all these disruptions. Like, look, winter started for us right after Halloween in the Midwest. It's been snowy and there's been a, like a. I think at least in my memory, between my time in Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Chicago this year, there's been precipitation. [00:23:51] Speaker A: Correct. Everyone freaks out. [00:23:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And anecdotally it's been more than I've seen in prior years for a much longer period of time and in a, in a market where you've, you've been washing out supply for a very long time, you've been slowly doing things to try to improve demand. I think obviously there's a, there's a, an administration that has a, a really strong push towards, towards the creation of demand. And, and some of those effects may be beginning now. You've got to expect that, that the, the combination of those two things are going to be felt when they're at their zenith on the supply side and at the beginning on the demand side. But I still think it's really important to be level headed about what we're looking at from a macro perspective. And I believe that these things will start to calm down before we get into the real meat of produce. [00:24:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree, I agree. It's been interesting too and it's something to monitor as well. A line that I've been using a lot is like the floor has been raised. Right. Like for a while there you could find a truck basically whatever price you wanted. Yeah. Which is not great. And whether it's quality, whether it's like you said, everyone just seeking out the alternatives or refusing to accept that there aren't alternatives out there. Like I'm not going to take this $20amile because someone's offering me a $60. I got to go get it. [00:25:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker A: There now there's more people offering that so I definitely have to go get it. [00:25:29] Speaker B: I think we can be a nice place for us and, and look, I don't know how much, how much data we would have just to see this effect in play. But I certainly something that I've, that I've, I've felt for us over the years when, when we've been in, in markets that are shifting back in the favor of, of carriers is that the capacity market that, that we live in at Zipline, it doesn't, it's actually pretty static. Like it's not as elastic as everything else. It's not cheapo bottom dollar. Guys. Almost all of our carriers in fact part of the way that we vetting them, we want them to be very serious about their business. Sure. They're not fly by night. So when you have these, these moments where there's, there's somebody on the other line for a $38 and you're offering $1.35. Uh, I think there's just a little bit less of that. Yeah. On, on sort of our parts and I, I know There are other three PLs that operate the way that we do that play in the market that we do and that we don't necessarily experience that same level of utter shock. Again, you know the point that we were talking about earlier though, right. I mean you, you have a, you have a, essentially a routing guide on each lane. Right. An internal routing guide on each lane. You've got partner carriers that, you know. Now, yeah, sure. If a lane is disrupted and it's moving on the wrong day or it's moving well above its, its planned volume or a snowstorm or an ice storm somewhere disrupts the capacity from being where it's supposed to be. Yeah. It can cause really serious problems. But yeah, I think there's a little bit less of that. And to me, you know, we've always been so good about, about like sales discipline, not we not just trying to grab opportunities and figure it out. [00:27:07] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:08] Speaker B: And I think staying disciplined to that is something that, that we've always been able to, to set ourselves apart from the marketplace on. And, and I think that's gonna, I think that's gonna play out here too. [00:27:20] Speaker A: Agreed. The, the blitz week. We'll just touch on that real quick. But it's only five business days, maybe even four business days. But I'd be interested to see speculative. I think I said that. Right. But I wonder if there is any lingering, like you mentioned, 10% of carriers have checks or whatever the data point is. It's not enough. If there is any lingering, quote unquote bad actors out there that are still in the marketplace. Right. Whatever that percentage may be, certainly in blitz week, that leftover is not going to be running. [00:28:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:06] Speaker A: Right. So that's another one where again, for the past three years or so we haven't seen much disruption or much extended disruption with those blitz weeks. We might see a little bit more of that this time. [00:28:22] Speaker B: Yeah. It'll be, it'll be interesting to find out if like that, that capacity that, that goes on vacation during Bliss Week every year happens. Happens to, to coincide. Right. Exactly. With. [00:28:33] Speaker A: Right. [00:28:34] Speaker B: Everybody that's being weeded out of the system. Yeah. I, I, I mean I think it's a, it's a worthwhile speculation that mount. [00:28:42] Speaker A: I thought one thing too, again, I'm meandering here, but one of the things in produce season or, or any of these markets where that become hot again in that equilibrium. Equilibrium. We would say a carrier would, would maybe take a lower rate to go into that market. Cause they know they're getting a higher rate out. [00:29:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:03] Speaker A: What's been interesting over the last couple months is referencing back to that Floor is raised is. That's not happening. [00:29:11] Speaker B: There are no backhauls. [00:29:12] Speaker A: Correct. So that's going to be interesting to see again when. If you have those spikes. You know, it's not on our show list, but the most recent one is a fuel uptick. Right. And, and some of those are more or less baked into contractual freight. [00:29:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:33] Speaker A: But on the spot market. Right. Like that's something to consider if you're. I think we had it where it went up 20 cents a mile over a week. [00:29:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:42] Speaker A: In a week's time. If you're talking 20. A 2000 mile run. That's a, that's a significant jump that you need to plan for and you need to adjust for. [00:29:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And if, if you think about how far behind sometimes a, a shipper's routing guide or, or, or how. How if their, their fuel's updating every Tuesday. Right. Look, official DOE may update on Tuesday but like Vlad updated his cost. [00:30:10] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Right. Live. [00:30:12] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. Oh saw that. [00:30:14] Speaker B: Yeah. It's going up. Yeah. I, we were chatting with, with Curly and the capacity team out there. Like I, I always in my time in the, in the seat in carrier sales and, and really even, even on the customer side. Like I, I liked when, when fuel was the driver. Just there's. It's. It's one of the, it's one of the few times in this space where everyone knows what's going on. It's like you would hope. [00:30:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:42] Speaker B: It's. Right. Especially this one. [00:30:43] Speaker A: I mean I would think you haven't been paying attention. Yeah. [00:30:48] Speaker B: Like to believe that everyone knows that this, this. [00:30:50] Speaker A: There's an issue. [00:30:51] Speaker B: There's a real issue. [00:30:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:52] Speaker B: And that it, and that it's a global market and the rate the prices go up. But yeah, that's a, that's going to be another big story I think for the year. Possibly positively and negatively. Right. Right now it's a really big challenge. [00:31:05] Speaker A: But I think talk about the floor being raised. It could be, hey, it was 35 cents a mile. It's now 65. Like get used to it. [00:31:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:15] Speaker A: This is it. It's not going back. [00:31:17] Speaker B: Wouldn't it be nice? This is never going to happen because it's not how the world works. But if, if we saw a fuel spike and people set their budgets and then fuel dropped and we just allowed trucking companies to make a living. How about it? That'd be amazing. [00:31:31] Speaker A: What a con. [00:31:32] Speaker B: We just gave that a shot for a little while. [00:31:36] Speaker A: Do you see something to consider for all of our customers and shippers out [00:31:41] Speaker B: There, we're gonna edit that. [00:31:43] Speaker A: I think we have plenty of folks who do understand that. [00:31:46] Speaker B: Oh, look, I, I, I think, I think most of the folks, again, playing in the consumer space, playing in the space where the, the performance really, really, really matters. Yeah, our customers understand this implicitly. They don't. [00:31:58] Speaker A: I, [00:32:00] Speaker B: I can't say, I can't. How many meetings I've had with clients where they're like, hey, we don't want your carriers losing money. Like, you're not driving people out of business, are you? I'm like, no, no, definitely not. But, but I think as a, as a, as a macro market and industry, it sure would be nice to get [00:32:18] Speaker A: people to a place where everybody wins [00:32:21] Speaker B: or, or just not one population just loses. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Right? No, that's a good call. So let's talk about from like the customer or shipper perspective. I think we've touched on some of the pain points, routing guides being disrupted, costs rising, hopefully gradually, but in some cases spikes. Do you think there's any advantages right now? [00:32:51] Speaker B: Well, look, I think that again, I can only speak to the, the clients that we work with that, that have made the decision over the years over good markets and bad markets to be partners and they, they really, I, to me, like, they, they really reap their rewards now. Right. Like they've been getting, they've been getting positive benefits. Right. For three years, of course, but like now is really where they reap rewards that, that the others do not. It really separates them from everybody else. And so if I think about who we represent, brands, manufacturers, folks whose product needs to be on a shelf within reach of a human or a click away from their end consumer in order to capitalize on all of their investment in production and logistics, that, yeah, if you've been partner focused and you know that you can keep your shelf space well stocked and you can keep your retailer relationships in a great place at Expo West. I think what's always one of my favorite things is that invariably we have conversations with retailers who are like, oh God, we love brands that work with you guys. It's so nice and refreshing. As a buyer or as a person who's got a planogram going to not have to try to figure out what my plan B, plan C and plan D are for this shelf space that I promised to this brand because I know that they have their focus in the right place. And so I think there's a great place for shippers to stand out and it's to focus your energy on getting your product on the shelf. [00:34:33] Speaker A: You Nailed it. I think there's a really chance for eyes to be opened of who is in it for the long haul. Pun intended. Who's ready to step up when things get a little more challenging. Right. Ah, this guy, he's, he's 20% less than you for the last three years. He's still nailing it and then all of a sudden that person's gone and what are we going to do? Oh, okay, maybe we'll. You were fourth on the routing guide but you've, you're 99%. Yeah. Let's go. Can you handle more? Can you do this? Can you do that? Yep. [00:35:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And listen, if, if there's advice to be taken for shippers, it's, it's really, you know, if you're evaluating who's a partner and who's not. Right. If you don't know yet right now who's a partner and who's not like that, that information is going to come at you relatively probably suddenly. But, but give your network the opportunity to be disciplined partners. Yeah. Like discipline is the name of the game for really long jet freight capacity providers or logistics solutions providers, like discipline has always been the name of the game for us and it's not always easy to explain the, the, the benefits of discipline in tight markets when new business is hard to come by. But it really shows itself during these times. So if you're a shipper, let like, let people be disciplined. Let the person that is fourth or fifth in the routing guide show up for you over and over and over again at that rate and prove to you why they were right when they quoted that rate in the first place. Because that like that person should be rewarded for passing on business that didn't make sense and for having the discipline to put an honest rate in place. Yeah. And so that, and that I just, I think that's how you build great partnerships. [00:36:27] Speaker A: Agreed. It'll be interesting to see a challenge of you mentioned folks not being in the seat with these disruptions. [00:36:35] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:36:36] Speaker A: I think of just like a, in the era of cost cutting and seeing like you said, oh I can handle this with only two people in my operation because I'm at 99% acceptance and da da da da. Well talk about burnout pretty quickly. If those two people are now dealing with 20% rejection rates and freights being rolled and reschedules and MAVDs are missing and all of a sudden that two person team is fighting fires and desperate for a solution and I remember those days, taking it home with you. This is unbearable. I can't handle, can get really, really overwhelming. So trying to empower them like you said, to find a solution and a partner is important but that could be a challenge for some folks for sure. Those lean teams. [00:37:31] Speaker B: Right. And this brings me back to like some of our, some of our oldest relationships who maybe were with us when we were small and then they, some of them went to big corporate roles and we weren't just weren't the partner for them then. And, and as they've circled back around so many of them come back with this, this really similar story. That's like I, we, we hit this point of scale and we started building out our like logistics, our internal logistics team. We brought it in house and we built a routing guide and we started tender and freight and we were saving 12, 13, 15% top line and, and then you know, like, sure enough, as the market dynamics change I've, we find ourselves in this place where we're basically just paying market rates and now I have like 724 year olds who are just running around rescheduling and chasing down trucks and I'm, I'm spending all the money I saved on freight. Right. On either staff to track down that freight or fees, fines and I'm sorry's, you know, mea culpas to retailers and customers and like the percentage of those folks, like whether it's because they made a strategic decision in their business or they just went to a different business where things were different and came back and was like this isn't. It doesn't make sense for me to own this. Yeah, it's not what I do. I make widgets. I don't move widgets. Yeah, that's another one is that, you know, look, if you've got a great partner or, or and obviously you know who to call if you're looking for one, but lean in and, and let them own it and like trust them. Right. If you, if you built a relationship built on trust, that has to hold in, in good times and bad. Right? [00:39:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:21] Speaker B: And so lean in and let your partner show you why they're valuable. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Nailed it. I think we've touched on most of these but we're going to toot our own horn here real quick. But particularly with canopy. Right. I think there's the data, the tracking of the data. If you've partnered with us for a long time, we can show you a macro impact and what our current impact is on your business. There's we, we touched on it before our consolidation tool that can help drive some costs and efficiencies throughout the week of the freight moving. And some of our. In really just the retail expertise. Right. I think that's another highlight. We talk about it all the time, but you could figure it out in a. In a down market if like what Costco scheduling is. But, you know, a quick phone call, a talk to someone, oh, you'll actually have a second shift. You'll stay open. Those little extra nuances. It's not. It's through experience, by doing that all the time that we've developed those skills. So it is an opportunity to again, set us apart from the rest of the folks out there. [00:40:33] Speaker B: There are a lot of ways to get a return on your logistics investment besides just telling people to go find cheaper trucks. And now's the time to start figuring those things out. [00:40:44] Speaker A: Overall produce will probably have an impact. [00:40:46] Speaker B: It'll have an impact. Yeah. [00:40:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Back to that, like you said, equilibrium where these spikes in demand will cause disruptions across the. The market as a whole. It will be interesting to see the. I don't know if it's an elephant in the room, but one element of the macro market that we've experienced two thirds of the way through Q1 was imports have been down. So there was a tariff ruling and. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Yeah, we didn't even touch on that. Good God, they're starting to pop. [00:41:20] Speaker A: And so like that. It was. It was. This was the first time, I think, in a long time that I've seen a good chunk. We'll call it 80% of the country on a map of like a heat map, if you will. And most of it being red and Southern California being blue. [00:41:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:40] Speaker A: Cold. And I can't. [00:41:42] Speaker B: That's strange. [00:41:42] Speaker A: Even Covid. Right. It was. That was when the ships were backed up. Right. [00:41:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:47] Speaker A: And so to think that one of the biggest shipping markets, if not the biggest in the country, was cold while this disruption was happening. And it could cause. And again, it's coming is another element to where another. Like kindling on the fire, if you will, or whatever you want to call it. [00:42:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Are people starting to rush shipments in to try to hit this window where it's like, hey, we're. We're in this 15%. We at least know what the number looks like. Let's go. Is that happening, Rush? [00:42:17] Speaker A: Maybe might be slightly hyperbolic, but increase for sure. I mean, can kind of only go up. Right? That's. That's how low it was. Yeah, it was low. Like historically low. And it's starting to creep. [00:42:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, yeah. Certainly when that. If that layers in on top of Nogales. It's going to be dicey. [00:42:38] Speaker A: Yeah. But as usual, you can call 888. Go zipline if you want to talk about this or other things. We'd love for our listeners to leave us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. We're going to have our quarterly update blog post in the show notes. Appreciate you stopping by. [00:42:55] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. [00:42:56] Speaker A: This might be our longest one ever. It was great seeing you. Thank you as always, Truck. Yeah, we'll see you next time.