Introduction
Hello there! Welcome to Super Dispatch! If this is your first article, I welcome you to our platform! Today, we will review our new feature, Price Negotiation. Price Negotiation helps Shippers, Brokers, and Carriers save precious negotiation time, maximize their earning potential, and know they have a load booked via Super Loadboard.
About
Price Negotiation allows Shippers and Brokers to automate negotiations with Carriers who Can Instantly Book via Super Loadboard, saving valuable time, speeding up the booking process for you and your carriers, and enabling you to move cars faster.
Tell Price Negotiation your budget, Carrier pickup and delivery dates, and how often you would like to increase the acceptable price range. Price Negotiation evaluates incoming load requests and bids from carriers on Super Loadboard and automatically sends offers or counteroffers based on your preferences.
Set-Up
The Carrier must have Can Instant Book status by being a verified carrier OR be issued Can Instantly Book status on the Manage Carriers page.
Price Negotiation will only respond to "Verified Carriers" if the “Allow Instant Booking” setting is enabled within the Super Loadboard Settings Page in Shipper TMS.
The Carrier’s bid must include Pickup and Delivery dates that match either the Shipper’s order dates or the Acceptable Carrier Dates defined by Price Negotiation.
The Carrier’s price must be considered acceptable based on the Current Acceptable bid amount defined by Price Negotiation.
If the carrier’s price is acceptable, an Offer will be sent.
If the carrier’s price is unacceptable, a Counter Offer will be sent in response.
Can Instantly Book
Navigate to Manage Carries
Browse and locate the Carrier you want to edit by clicking on Search. Then, just click on their name to continue.
Once you click on their name, you will be brought to their profile. From here, click the Edit Icon under Internal Records.
Click the Edit icon, select "Approved" from the "Carrier Status" drop-down menu, check the "Can Instantly Book" box, and click Save to enable instant booking for the carrier.
Setting up Price Negotiation
First, set your Negotiation Budget. Your Negotiation Budget is the “wiggle room” or difference between your Starting Carrier Price, and the maximum price you desire to pay a carrier.
Additionally, the summary field at the bottom will show updates as you enter the fields.
Once you have entered your Negotiation Budget, you can add Acceptable Carrier Dates. This allows you to silently extend the acceptable Carrier Pickup and Delivery Dates without actually changing them on the post to Super Loadboard. Use this to define your “wiggle room” on when the carrier can pick up and deliver the load.
If you want to use a percentage of your Negotiation Budget to increase the acceptable bid at specific day-based intervals, click “Add Gradual Increase”.
When Gradual Increase is enabled, Counter Offers are sent even before the start day.
Enter a Start Date, percentage value (%), and a number (#) of days. Once you have entered both, you’ll see a schedule of increases to the Acceptable Bid amount based on your configurations.
Once you are done, click Save & Enable to activate Price Negotiation.
No Gradual Increase
With Gradual Increase
Important Notes:
“Max Price” in this particular case = “Starting Carrier Price” of the order PLUS your Negotiation Budget Amount ($).
If you choose not to add any “Acceptable Carrier Dates” then Price Negotiation will use the default rule which will require that the bidding Carrier’s requested pickup and delivery date must match your Preferred Dates (Order Dates which are listed on the order posted to Super Loadboard.)
We will warn you if the Carrier Price is going to go over the Tariff due to the negotiation budget.
⚠️ If you increase the Total Carrier Price of the order, the “Max Price” for the load will also increase. This means that if you want to increase the posted price, you’ll also need to update the Price Negotiation configuration to reduce your negotiation budget. This is because the “Max Price” is calculated by adding the Total Carrier Price + Negotiation Budget.
Visibility
You'll have visibility on many levels once you have configured, saved, and enabled Price Negotiation.
First, the Price Negotiation tag at the top of the order details view indicates Price Negotiation is enabled. You can hover over the tag with your mouse to see the current Acceptable Bid.
You will also see your Negotiation Budget and current Acceptable Bid in the Payment section of the order.
Automated Offers & Counter Offers
Any bids from Carriers who Can Instantly Book that fall between the starting carrier price and the max price will be accepted automatically. A load offer will be sent to that Carrier, and the order will be unposted from the Super Loadboard.
If a Carrier who Can Instantly Book places a bid over the max acceptable bid, that carrier will receive a Counter Offer for the max price. The order will stay posted on the Super Loadboard, allowing other carriers to bid.
Counter Offers to Multiple Carriers
Price Negotiation can send a Counter Offer for the maximum acceptable price to multiple carriers at the same time. This increases your chance of booking with a carrier as soon as possible and helps you negotiate in real-time with your carriers via Super Loadboard.
Counter Offers to Multiple Carriers are only possible when Price Negotiation is enabled and can only be sent by Price Negotiation. You will not be able to manually send Counter Offers to multiple carriers.
Offer and Counter Offer History & Activity
You can see a history of Offers and Counter Offers in the Requests View, as well as the Activity Log in the Order Details screen as Offer Sent via Price Negotiation or Counter Offer Sent via Price Negotiation.
Exceptions
Some Load Requests or Bids will be considered an exception. Exceptions are Load Requests or Bids that will not receive an offer or counteroffer via Price Negotiation. Exceptions require a manual response, and will display in the carrier requests view for you to manage as you see fit. You can accept the Load Request Manually, make a counteroffer, or decline manually. Below are cases which are considered as exceptions:
Bids from Carriers who Can Instantly Book but use Pickup and/or Delivery date(s) outside the preferred dates OR the Acceptable Carrier Dates you have defined in Price Negotiation.
Load Requests or Bids from carriers who cannot Instant Book.
Manual Counter Offers
If you send a manual counteroffer in response to a bid considered an exception, any automated counteroffer (s) that were previously sent will be canceled.
Conclusion
If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please contact our support team anytime. You can reach us via email at [email protected] or simply click on the chat icon in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen to start a conversation with us. We're here to help and look forward to assisting you! 🚚