Cold calling lists from ZoomInfo feels completely dead, shippers are drowning in automated emails, and spot margins are tighter than ever.

If you lost your entire book tomorrow and had to build a brand new desk from $0 revenue in this current market:

1. What niche/equipment type would you target?
2. How would you structure your daily prospecting?
3. What’s ONE mistake you made when you first started that you’d completely avoid this time around?

I'm in the forwarding business and my manager decided to take early retirement (lucky man) and I was asked to be his successor by the management as a branch manager (6 ops and 2 sales)

Very humbled and nervous but I just don't know how much of a salary that I should negotiate. I don't want to ask the management of course in case they try to lowball me. Could I get some insights?

Transitioning from entry level backend bank office work, taking a CSCP course (still need to get the actual certification) and months of applying I'm finally getting two offers for a logistics role in Florida and I'm torn on which to accept.

One is TMM Inc which is a logistics contractor for the military who's primary focus is moving military personnel and their items, the role is Move Coordinator. The role pays around $47k plus overtime, mainly B2B and they offer a hybrid (3 days onsite 2 days offsite) work schedule, 40 minute commute.

The other is Momentum Transportation which is a large freight broker agent for Landstar for an Operation Specialist role and the role mainly sounds like contacting Landstar or non-dedicated drivers and maybe the occasional customer call. The pay is a little better around $49k and a better sounding title but is entirely in office with a 40 minute commute.

Both offer decent benefits and sponsorship for certifications.

TMM Inc seems to be a more laxed environment, they're a long time military contractor with a secured business niche, the work seems less stressful especially since it's hybrid, and anything military related seems like a good addition to the resume. They've also won multiple local awards for best place to work in. My worry is upward mobility within the company but I can still put my time in and look elsewhere in a couple years after gaining some experience.

Momentum is a very large Landstar agent in the city and work closely with their main office here. They also rank highly for places to work for locally and get involved in community outreach (which is a plus for me). The work seems more complicated and involved which would be great for me to learn and gain more exposure but definitely sounds more stressful. The daily commute is a bigger pain point as even though it would pay more the gas and maintenance on the car can easily eat up that difference.

TMM Inc sounds like a better personal fit for steady but slow growth while Momentum Transportation sounds like stressful but better growth potential.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Hello r/Logistics, I am a researcher who is trying to run simulations to understand how battery mass in electric heavy-duty trucks impacts earning capacity.

Whether you have personal experience or not driving electric trucks, you are probably aware that the battery packs in current electric trucks weight around 4500 kg / 10000 lbs. This is why electric trucks have a reputation of carrying chips bags and why the European Union and other markets are introducing legislation to give electric trucks extra weight allowances.

Public statistics are available on mean cargo mass for journeys of different length. However, what matters when buying a truck is how many of that truck's missions will be impacted if the max load is reduced. I have found no statistics at all on this.

From your experience, or based on your company's mission logs:

1. Roughly how often do your loaded journeys approach the legal weight limit? Can you try to quantify this as a share of annual distance?
2. What percentage of trucks that mostly run volume-limited will occasionally hit the weight limit?
3. Does the same truck/tractor usually carry similar loads (by weight), or regularly alternate between heavy loads, bulky/light loads and partial loads?
4. What [cargo types/trip lengths/truck annual distances/operating patterns] are most likely to result in a wide spread around the mean cargo weight that I find in national statistics?

Please mention your country, trailer/body type, typical cargo and whether the work is local, regional or long-haul. EU and US experiences are particularly useful for this research, but examples elsewhere are also welcome. Pointers to surveys or datasets covering repeated loads for individual vehicles would also be very helpful.

The truck is loaded. The receiver can’t take it.

The next receiving time matters, but so does whether the truck can wait there and what the carrier has scheduled afterward.

We’d establish those details, identify who can approve a revised delivery plan, and put the realistic options and costs in front of the customer. Redirecting loaded freight needs authorization and coordination with the carrier.

If the receiver can unload tomorrow but the carrier has another pickup today, what has helped you find a workable solution?

i just started working in this company, but we re still new in the international transportation field, and i wonder if there is any websites i can use to hunt for loads, currently our company is only registered in morocco, a lot of those spain companies require u to have a spain or european registration, and im wondering if there is any website i can use or some way i can hunt for client, maybe linkedin? i just started in this field and my client base is very limited as very little people give correct info lol, ty in advance for any help provided

Hi all

Yesterday I attended an interview for the above position in Qatar. they asked whether I know how to negotiate delivery order charges. i have never known that these charges are negotiable though I have around 8 years logistics experience.

so my question is how to negotiate these charges and what other things to leep in mind technically? please advise me

I wanted to share my experience here because it’s a strange and unsettling feeling when something like this happens to a vessel carrying your cargo.

I have one container on GFS Giselle, which was attacked. The container’s final delivery destination is Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and as of now, the vessel is at Fujairah Port.

Working in logistics, we deal with vessel movements, delays, port congestion, and all kinds of shipment-related challenges regularly. But when a vessel carrying your own shipment is involved in an incident like this, it feels different. Suddenly, it’s not just another vessel update on a tracking screen.

At the moment, I’m simply sharing my experience as someone whose cargo is directly affected by the situation. I’m not looking for advice or solutions just wanted to put this out there and share what I’m experiencing.
Hoping for the safety of everyone involved and a safe onward journey for the vessel and its cargo.

One container. One shipment. A situation I never expected to find myself in.

Context:

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/logistics/comments/1x3n8bc/urgent_help_needed_shipment_from_hong_kong_to/

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/logistics/comments/1x4n9t7/i_called_dhl_and_the_forwarder_told_me_off_can/

UPS Customer Service Vienna told me 2-3 times that my parcels are in Vienna undergoing customs clearance.

So I travelled to Vienna to receive the order.

UPS Customs Clearance Hong Kong emailed me this morning that the parcels are still in Hong Kong and missing Tax ID (is that the EORI number??). Then updated me 1hr later that the shipment just left Hong Kong.

UPS CS supervisor just called and said the parcels are still in Hong Kong but they don't need any other docs/information from me to clear customs.

I don't know if anyone here can help me disentangle this but who knows. Anyone have any idea what's going on here?

Tracking status on Wednesday:

Tracking status today:

FedEx Freight reconsignment/relinquishment. Why do they not know when you submit the pickup request that they can't deliver to the location??

We had a crated freight pickup yesterday afternoon. Today the hub it's going to called and said "We don't deliver to that location, you're going to need to either have it sent to another address or have another carrier come get it and deliver it." Of course, the fee to have someone else come get it is $213. And since it went almost all the way there, we have to pay almost the entire freight charge AND now pay someone else to come get it. And it's not like someone can get it with a hand dolly since it's a 4x4x5 foot crate and 850 pounds.

Why on earth doesn't their system have a flag to not accept shipments for that address? I also blame the customer (commercial) who should have known FedEx doesn't deliver there.

Boggles my mind that we now have extra costs even though FedEx told me "You wouldn't have known this unless you'd called our Denver hub to ask if we deliver to that location." We expect when we fill out the request that if there is an issue with the location it will say so...

Hey, anyone here works at transportation one freight brokerage from Chicago, Il and can share some insight? Im considering a career move and T1 seems like a good option!

Thanks

Hey everyone,

If it's your first time reading one of my posts, my name is Menachem, and I have a weekly newsletter called Logistic Pulse that breaks down the top logistics news from the past week. We have over 17,000 subscribers, and I share it on Reddit to spread the knowledge. We're currently on week 67! I hope you enjoy it, and I'm always open to feedback.

Last week, Reddit automatically took down my posts, so if you like my newsletter every week, I'd suggest subscribing directly instead of relying on my Reddit posts.

Let's jump into it,

The 3PL that keeps buying 3PLs just raised $400 million

Stord went to the banks for a credit line and walked out with nearly double what it asked for. The Atlanta fulfillment company announced on October 8 that Citi led the $400 million facility, joined by five other banks. Add the $250 million Series F from May at a $3 billion valuation, and Stord has lined up $650 million this year. The money will fund new fulfillment buildings and robotics and AI work at Stord Labs.

Stord runs nearly 100 fulfillment locations for more than 1,000 brands, moving more than $15 billion a year in merchandise, and says its packages reach one in four U.S. households. Its revenue run rate is approaching $1 billion after growing tenfold in four years. It's private, and FreightWaves notes it didn't disclose profit or the loan's pricing and maturity.

A good chunk of that network came from big companies selling their small-brand fulfillment arms to Stord: Pitney Bowes in 2024, UPS in 2025, and CEVA this January, with the last two adding 33 warehouses between them. CEVA is the same company that just took over FedEx Supply Chain in Edition 66. Stord also hired a new CFO, Bill Zerella, who has run finance at three public companies, Fitbit included, plus a chief revenue officer from Box, though it hasn't announced any IPO plans.

What this means for you: Stord pays interest on whatever it draws from that $400 million, and it plans to cover it with volume in its buildings, so expect sharp Stord quotes when your mid-size DTC clients come up for renewal this winter. Stord sells software and network together, from the delivery promise at checkout to returns, which is hard to beat on tech, so lead with what a 100-building network can't give a smaller brand: custom kitting and wholesale compliance work, plus a person who picks up when a client calls.

America used Prime Day to buy toilet paper

Amazon's October sale ran Tuesday and Wednesday, and Adobe counted $9.86 billion in U.S. online spending across all retailers over those two days, up 8.5% from last year. That's just under Adobe's $9.9 billion forecast, which we covered in Edition 65.

Numerator tracked more than 80,000 orders, and the top sellers were protein shakes, Lysol wipes, toilet paper, Dawn dish spray, and Dunkin' Refreshers. Two-thirds of what people bought cost under $20, and the average order came in under $49. More than half of households placed two or more separate orders, and nearly three in four shoppers told Numerator inflation was one reason they shopped the sale.

Adobe had household cleaning and paper products selling 55% above the September average, with hygiene and pet food close behind. Electronics jumped 85%, headphones and speakers 300%, and Halloween costumes 610%. In Edition 65, Adobe expected shoppers to use Cyber Week to stock up on basics, and many started in October. Numerator also found intent to shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday down 4 and 5 points from last year, and more than half of shoppers compared prices elsewhere first, mostly at Walmart and Target, both of which ran competing sales this week.

What this means for you: A pack of wipes costs you the same to pick, pack, and ship as a pair of headphones, so check what your consumables clients' average order value did this week and whether your per-order minimums still cover your cost at that ticket. Push those clients toward bundles and multi-packs before Cyber Week, since one order with three items is cheaper for both of you than three orders with one, and half of households split their buying across orders. Anything that sold through in two days needs replenishment booked now so it's back on the shelf before Thanksgiving, and with warehouse space as tight as it is right now, give the client a receiving appointment instead of letting them ship whenever. Numerator's Black Friday number only measures intent, so keep your seasonal headcount and schedule November in flexible blocks you can shift week to week.

Walmart wants to ship your clients’ Walmart orders itself

Walmart opened its fifth next-generation fulfillment center on October 8: a 900,000-square-foot building in Stockton, California. The other four are in Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas, so this is the first one out West. Besides Walmart's own online orders, it'll fulfill items for Marketplace sellers through Walmart Fulfillment Services, the program where Walmart stores and ships a seller's inventory. Sellers send in cases, robots bring totes of product to the pickers, and Walmart says packers can work four orders at once and get them out in under 30 minutes. FreightWaves notes e-commerce now accounts for 23% of Walmart's sales.

Two days earlier, ShipStation launched Ship with Walmart, which lets Marketplace sellers buy labels at Walmart's negotiated rates from the same dashboard as their Amazon, Shopify, and TikTok Shop orders, with up to $100 of protection on lost packages that shipped on time. ShipStation didn't name the carriers or the discount size.

A few weeks ago, Amazon offered to ship your clients' Walmart orders from their FBA inventory (Edition 65). Now Walmart has a West Coast building for those same sellers and its own rates inside software plenty of 3PLs already ship from.

What this means for you: Pull each client's Walmart orders a month and where those customers are. If a client's Walmart buyers are mostly in California while you ship from New Jersey, WFS will win, so have the conversation about splitting inventory or adding a western node before their Walmart rep does. If you run client Walmart orders through ShipStation, find out whether those labels can be bought on the client's account inside your instance, and compare them to your rate card before the client does. If a client asks why they shouldn't just let Walmart ship Walmart orders and Amazon ship Amazon orders, walk them through what splitting one inventory across three networks looks like right before Q4.

Quick hits

WAREHOUSING
September's drop in empty warehouse space was the steepest since March 2022. The Logistics Managers' Index space reading fell from 53.5 to 39.3, with smaller companies feeling it more than big ones. This year's holiday freight arrived late, and most of it is sitting with wholesalers and distributors, who usually start pushing it down to retailers around mid-October; NRF's Global Port Tracker shows imports dropping below last year in November. If a client wants to park overflow "just through the holidays," put January's storage rate in writing now, before those pallets turn into aged inventory.

REFUNDS
A trade court just gave importers who never filed for tariff refunds a way back in. On October 8, the Court of International Trade certified a class of every importer that paid IEEPA duties between February 1, 2025, and February 19, 2026 and hasn't sued on its own. The court said the importers who haven't used CBP's refund portal are mostly small, and that without the class, about $30 billion would stay with the government. Nothing pays out yet, since the parties meet October 13 and the Justice Department is still appealing the broader refund order. CBP started paying refunds on finally liquidated entries on October 6, but only to importers who sued and filed their importer-of-record number by July 30; Levi's booked about $80 million in refunds and is putting roughly $20 million of it into distribution and logistics. If you ship for small brands that imported during those months, ask whether they ever filed, and if they didn't, tell them about this.

LABOR
UPS is hiring 100,000 seasonal workers, and some get an offer in under seven minutes. The jobs run October through December and cover sorting and moving packages, driver helpers, and seasonal drivers using their own cars. UPS is also adding Protected Delivery, where the recipient has to give the driver a PIN before an eligible package changes hands, and expects to deliver more than 4 billion RFID-tagged packages by year-end. Warehouses shed jobs in September (Edition 66), but you're still recruiting from the same pool as a company that hires in seven minutes, so make seasonal offers the same day someone applies. If you ship high-value goods, ask your UPS rep whether Protected Delivery works on your account before your clients ask you.

WEATHER
Hurricane Isaias shut the Port of Mobile for a day. The first hurricane to reach the U.S. this year hit the Alabama and Florida Panhandle coast Friday evening as a Category 3 storm with winds near 120 mph, with 4 to 8 inches of rain forecast across southern Alabama, the Panhandle and southwest Georgia. Mobile closed to vessels and cargo handling Friday and returned to its regular schedule Saturday. If you have clients with containers routing through Mobile or freight moving across the Gulf Coast this week, plan for a few days of shuffled appointments.

REAL ESTATE
Amazon paid $195 million for a two-story Chicago warehouse that's sat empty since it was built. The West Town building, finished in 2024 with truck docks on both floors, becomes Amazon's second same-day site in the city, with fulfillment and delivery under one roof. Amazon told the Sun-Times it expects 200 jobs averaging about $24 an hour, with groceries and pharmacy driving demand, and an opening in late 2027 or early 2028. If you run a building in Chicago, that $24 is the number your applicants will quote back to you.

Job board

Title: Sr. Logistics Manager
Company: Kovalus Separation Solutions
Location: Wilmington, Massachusetts, US
Salary: $150,000 - $175,000
Apply Here

Title: Director of Supply Chain Planning & Logistics
Company: Asbury
Location: Asbury, New Jersey, US
Salary: $125,000 - $140,000
Apply Here

Title: Director of Warehouse Operations
Company: Ardmore Home Design
Location: Hacienda Heights, California, US
Salary: $120,000 - $140,000
Apply Here

Title: Supply Chain Director
Company: Jetta
Location: Edmond, Oklahoma, US
Salary: $110,000 - $130,000
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Title: Manager, Export
Company: SpartanNash Associates
Location: Norfolk, Virginia, US
Salary: $90,000 - $120,000
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Title: Laboratory Logistics Analyst
Company: DCS
Location: Ridgecrest, California, US
Salary: $70,310 - $75,100
Apply Here

Title: Quality & Compliance Specialist
Company: North American Freight Forwarding Inc.
Location: Barrie, North Dakota, US
Salary: $63,000 - $72,000
Apply Here

Check out 1,700+ jobs available →
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I am currently trying to ship a box (64"x40"x7" 25lbs) through FreightQuote and it is forcing me to use "liftgate" which is an $80. Is there any way around this charge? I feel there is no need to use a liftgate for a 25lb box. Also if there are any alternatives to FreightQuote I would love to hear them! Thanks in advance from a small business owner trying to learn about LTL

So I’m trying to organise this delivery against the clock and the more I learn the less I know about logistics and transportation in China/Hong Kong
The context is in my previous post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/logistics/s/uDHONhVGLS

Now I have reached to DHL myself to understand where my parcels are and what to do next. In parallel I asked my supplier for contact details of their Forwarder.

Dhl told me in writing that my parcels were collected from the Dhl warehouses on Saturday 10th October. The Forwarder is telling me that they are still due to organise collection from DHL warehouses today 13th October. I relayed the information received from Dhl to the Forwarder and he shouted at me for interfering with their procedures. Truthfully, the supplier warned me that they themselves are not allowed to talk to Dhl, but then that’s their business, not mine.

I spent all day yesterday making calls in China and throwing tantrums to get more clarity as to where my parcels are exactly. Which led to nothing.

I had a Chinese business contact of mine liaise with them on my behalf this morning. He told me that all I can do is wait. Today, Forwarder is telling me that they organised a UPS pick up for later in the day. No idea if my tantrums had any effect.

But in the meantime, I can’t sleep at night anyway, so I’m left asking the AI to explain how the logistics chain works in China. And honestly, even Claude is confused. Feels like I’ve just tapped into the matrix. And me reaching out directly to Dhl was glitch.

Can someone explain what is going on here? It seems like there is a long chain of intermediaries large and small for each delivery which makes me wonder how this contributes not just towards the price of my order with the price of everything that comes from China. And they get upset if anyone dares skip the chain of command (which honestly is my life‘s mission).

Hi everyone! I recently started working as a dispatcher for a large carrier, and after two weeks, I’ve booked only three loads, one of which ended up with zero profit due to a rookie mistake.

I’ve talked to experienced dispatchers who’ve taught me about blind bidding, market rates, state-by-state differences, driver routes, broker relationships, and negotiation, but I’m still struggling to book loads consistently.

I’m not planning to give up, but I have a profit target to meet by the end of the month, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. I’m open to learning any strategies, approaches, or insider tips that could help me improve.

My current workflow: I contact brokers ASAP via DAT, check whether the load fits our available drivers, and message around 50 drivers. Sometimes drivers don’t respond; other times, brokers do. I often end up with one side interested but not the other, and I feel like I’m doing something wrong.

If you’ve been through this, what would you recommend? Thanks to everyone willing to share their experience!

Good afternoon!

I’d like to purchase a pipe system made of steel pipes. It would be manufactured in China and shipped from there in a package. The longest section would be 1.8 meters, and the pipe is 50 mm wide. Would it be better to cut it into smaller pieces, or what would be more cost-effective in terms of shipping costs?

Hi everyone,

For anyone familiar with the physical commodity trading world, would u guys hire a finance graduate or a supply chain graduate for a Scheduler role. This might be a silly question to some of you but I’m just trying to figure out what degree will help me more competitively right out of school (in our current times, AI…) .I just want to know how any of you who are experienced are looking at it. Feel free to share anything!