When Will Freight Markets Improve?

Stubbornly weak freight market conditions have been placing financial strain on third-party logistics companies for the past couple of years. Industry analysts agree it’s largely due to an oversupply of truck capacity driving down rates and squeezing brokers’ margins.

This challenging business environment for 3PLs has persisted into early 2024. "Right now, there’s still excess capacity and until that right-sizes, we won’t see the turnaround we all want,” said Kendra Phillips, vice president and general manager of transportation management and freight brokerage at Ryder. https://www.ttnews.com/articles/freight-market-conditions-2023#

According to the Transportation Intermediaries Association, the final quarter of 2023 stood out as the toughest period of a tough year, with an 8.8% drop in total revenue. The equation for recovery includes a consistently strong US economy and the fact that more than 35,000 carriers have exited the industry in the past year and a half.

https://www.tianet.org/

“I think we’ll see a market largely pointed toward recovery by mid to late Q2, and think we’ll have a pretty good Q3 this year,” says Ken Adamo, Chief Analyst at DAT.

https://www.dat.com/

Twenty E-Commerce Trends for 2024

1.    Increased prevalence of voice search

2.    AI-assisted upselling and cross-selling

3.    Additional payment options for buyers

4.    Augmented reality to visualize purchases

5.    Smarter mobile shopping tools

6.    Growth in subscription models

7.    Renewed focus on sustainability

8.    Multichannel customer support

9.    Enhanced distribution and fulfillment planning

10.  Seamless online purchases

11.  More personalized marketing and products

12.  New marketplaces and faster distribution channels

13.  Highly optimized websites to maximize conversions

14.  Growth of the forward deploy fulfillment center (FDFC) *

15.  Additional online advertising competition

16.  Instant analytics and machine learning to optimize sales

17.  Preferences for ethical and independent businesses

18.  Automated B2B transactions

19.  Changes to consumer privacy preferences **

20.  Direct-to-consumer businesses continue to flourish

*Several stores and public places are now home to automated retail lockers where customers can pick up their e-commerce purchases. These small fulfillment centers are known as FDFCs.

**Online privacy laws restrict what businesses can track and options when handling customer data, so it’s important to ensure your business is compliant. Telling customers what you do to keep their information private is a good way to build trust online.

Oracle Netsuite https://www.netsuite.com/portal/home.shtml

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