If you are a haulier, big or small, you will know the importance of not having your vehicles standing idle and the logistical demands of getting cargo to customers on-time. But if you have excess cargo you cannot ship and empty wagons, then why not sign up to a freight exchange service, an innovative forum which seeks to solve both problems?

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With a freight exchange, hauliers are given the means to hook up with each other, do business and profit from each other’s needs: a unique one-on-one service in which a company gets the chance to get cargo to customers without delay, while the other has the wheels to undertake that service.

Freight exchange, supported by Haulage Exchange, enables hauliers to work in the current tough economic climate to counter high transportation costs, squeezed profits and logistical nightmares.

One of the benefits of the service is offering to pick up loads on return journeys, which would otherwise have meant an empty wagon and wasted fuel and time on the road. Taking on someone else’s extra work is common sense and offers lucrative contacts and can be very profitable too.

Here’s a quick step-by-step way of how a haulier can use the services of a freight exchange easily and keep the wheels of their business turning:

Sign up

Haulage Exchange, part of the Transport Exchange Group, operates the freight exchange forum, one of the UK’s largest. Currently there are four thousand five hundred affiliated companies signed up. A haulier, who has a load from a regular customer but no vehicles to accommodate the task, can post details of the load, pickup point, destination and timings on the secure member’s only forum.

A call for help

The details, once posted, appear on the freight exchange forum. For the sake of efficiencies, the load will be matched with suitable members who are then alerted by email or SMS, or both. Either way, the opportunity of meeting supply with demand is increased significantly.

Strike a deal

Forum members can then get in touch with the poster directly if they want the job. Both professional parties can check out each other’s credentials with the unique feedback system on the site, and then they can agree the pay terms and rates. The site’s booking system can then be used to confirm the details.

A job well done

Once the job has been completed, the haulier who took the job on can invoice the ‘load’ poster. They will get paid in agreement with their terms and then both parties can leave feedback online.

That will complete the freight exchange and the result is a satisfied customer and a happy haulier, pleased to have been able to help each other out. Haulage Exchange takes no commission from the deals, but simply seeks to pull hauliers together for the benefits and profits of members.

And if you have any doubts, just consider the freight exchange statistics that speak for themselves The service connects four thousand five hunderd users who are operating more than twenty thousand vehicles, and more than thirty thousand job despatches are posted each month.