How Does a TMS Practically Produce Savings?

A deeper look into how Freight Rate shopping can help you.

First of all, what is freight rate shopping?

Freight quote shopping is the process by which you organize all of your carrier rates into one location (a TMS, excel sheet, your head, etc.) and evaluate each option in order to help guide your final carrier decision. With many modern transportation management systems, you are able to enter the shipment information and immediately receive quotes from your selected carriers.

The beauty of centralized freight rate shopping is that you can see which carriers are providing the best deal. At FreightPOP we estimate that, one average, users can save up to 10% of freight charges per shipments by having all of their rates available to view in one comparison matrix.

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Without a TMS, and in a best-case scenario; shippers might compile quotes in an actively used excel workbook, although that can be tedious. A good TMS will provide a clean interface to easily scan through available rates, such as FreightPOP's quoting screen below:

Freight rate shopping

Freight rate shopping provides one explicit benefit in saving money by showcasing all of your rates in one place; however, a benefit which is more subtle is the time saved. Freight rate shopping is an automatic process done in our back-end which eliminates the user requirement to manually call up the carrier and get a rate.

Bottom line: this is a huge time saving feature for shippers. We estimate that quoting automation saves shippers an average of 5 minutes per shipment. What would normally take up to half-an-hour spent calling carriers to get different quotes now takes a matter of seconds.

So, what does this mean for the average shipper? Shippers can now re-claim what would otherwise be wasted time on the phone (or online) trying to get carrier quotes. Companies who ship often are now able to view all of their quotes in one place. Shippers don’t have to waste time looking up rates online, and they don’t just have to go with the most convenient carriers. Want to get shipping smarter and learn how much you can save? Check out FreightPOP in more detail!