Best Way To Shop For Auto Transport

Shopping for auto transport is no different than shopping for anything else.  It usually consists of the same old routine – call around to at least 3 different businesses and get a quote. Or these days, you can usually get some kind of an instant quote by going to their website and submitting information to get a quote.

However, the drawback to this approach is two-fold: 

1) you are giving them your contact information at which point you will instantly begin to receive phone calls from their sales team hounding you.  

2) In the event you decide not to do business with them, they maintain and or share your information with their partners to upsell other types of services to you.

Calls from professional sales people can sometimes get the best of us, making us accept a deal because we are convinced there is no company out there any better than them.  These sales people are really good at their jobs and you should not feel bad – they are pros.

Sharing your contact information with them may lead to continuous unwanted emails to your inbox.

There is a better way to shop for auto transport and it is TranpsortBids.com.

I am a seasoned software developer that has worked in the auto transport space for over 10 years.  In fact, I wrote a software application (MadeLogistics) specifically for auto transport companies to manage their sales and track their orders while securing the transport of all the vehicles, which I later sold to Bob Hollenshead of R.Hollenshead Auto Sales. 

Most of the auto transport companies you find on the web are actually not the transporters themselves.  Most are transport brokers.  

The definition of an auto transport broker is as follows, and this is right out of Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_transport_broker):

“An auto transport broker is part of the personal vehicle freight business industry chain. In the U.S., these broker companies must have proper licensing and authority from the FMCSA to be allowed to broker vehicles for customers. The individual or business that needs to move a car or other vehicle is the shipper; the shipper contacts a broker to have their vehicle shipped or transported. Once a broker is booked, the broker’s job is to find a carrier, which is the individual or company that actually employs drivers and operates the car transport equipment.

Brokers are employed because they have access to freight load boards, where they can post the job and find carriers that have transportation resources in the area. They can also get lower shipping prices by getting competing bids by different carriers. However, brokers and carriers are not always separate entities – a number of auto transport companies handle both brokerage and transport.”

Transport brokers will handle all of the hassles of vehicle transport (paperwork, dispatching etc) on your behalf for a fee.  The issue is, the markup is all over the place and you’ll never really know just how much you should be paying.  There are thousands of vehicle transport brokers. 

The secret behind really knowing how much money the broker is making as the “middle man” is simple and I’ll let you know shortly.  First I want to preface that vehicle transport brokers are necessary unless you want to take on the hassle of finding a carrier and handling the paperwork that goes with it.

Instant Quotes From Vehicle Transport Companies

What you need to be aware of about instant quotes that you receive from a transport company’s website is that 

you will be served with an instant price that is usually overly padded and is rarely the best price you could get.  

These tools serve one purpose and really one purpose only, to satisfy your quench for an instant price but more importantly is to get your information.  This is why you will receive a phone call just moments after filling out their form and usually they will start lowering their price a bit to get you to sign.

There is a well-known ad campaign slogan from the company, Lending Tree – “When banks compete, you win!”

This concept also works for the auto transport space and I am proud to say I wrote the platform that does exactly this.  

TransportBids is a reverse auction platform auto transport brokers participate on and customers, like yourself, go to and submit their transport requirements.  The beautiful thing about this is that it is 100% transparent.  This means the brokers see each other’s bids for your job and compete by continuously bidding the price down to the lowest price they will bear.  There are no phone calls or exchange of contact information at the start.  They will not know who you are until you decide to select a winner, and that is optional.  Meaning you are not obligated to accept any of their bids if you choose not to.  

The average savings per vehicle (at the time of this article) is $357.

Earlier, I mentioned a little secret I could share with you about how much the brokers make.  The broker’s fee at a minimum is the amount they collect from you as a deposit.  If they find a carrier to move your vehicle for less than the difference between the total price and their fee, that goes to them as well.  If you want to make sure you save money, there is no better way than to use TransportBids.  Brokers will only lower their price to a point they know they can still pay a carrier with the total amount less their fee and get your vehicle moved quickly for you.  If they go too low, the vehicle may sit out on the load board too long because the carrier will not want to move it unless it’s convenient or they cannot find another load.

Unless you are a professional negotiator, the only sure way to negotiate the price down is to let them do it for you by competing with other brokers.