Managing a FedEx contracting business requires more than meeting delivery deadlines. Behind every successful operation is a business owner juggling multiple responsibilities—from vehicle maintenance to regulatory compliance. While the opportunity for profit is significant, the financial challenges contractors face can lead to overwhelming stress, especially without proper preparation or planning.
Topics: Business Structure, Business Planning, Bookeeping, Management, Business, settlement, Cash flow, expenses, Financial, Network 2.0, CSA, Plan
FedEx’s recent updates to its Time-Definite Delivery (TDD) policies have service providers talking—and for good reason. These changes, which include transitioning to a weekly TDD Service Charge, instead of a Time-Definite Per Stop Charge, have been introduced to streamline operations and incentivize high-quality performance.
If you're a FedEx service provider, staying informed and adjusting to these updates is crucial for understanding the impact to your settlement and meeting financial margin benchmarks. This guide will break down what the TDD changes mean, how they may impact your operations, and how you can leverage tools like the eTruckBiz OPTIX app to maximize performance and settlement under the new system.
Topics: Business, settlement, Financial, Network 2.0, time definite
FedEx’s ambitious steps toward implementing Network 2.0 come with one major assumption—that contractors can deliver the quality and performance improvements essential to making the combined network a success. FedEx is betting big on its contractor force to provide higher productivity and efficiency, but are these outcomes realistic? And how can contractors align themselves with FedEx's demands while maintaining control over their operations?
This blog dissects FedEx’s high-stakes strategy, helps contractors understand what’s expected of them, and explores how they might meet—or even exceed—these expectations without compromising their own business margins.
Topics: Business Tools, FedEx, Business, contractor, Financial, Network 2.0, time definite, time commit, Express, Integration
Schedule K plays a crucial role in setting contractors up for success during the upcoming peak season. With delivery volumes surging and operational pressure increasing, understanding Schedule K is more important than ever for service providers. Whether you’re considering opting into Schedule K for the first time or evaluating how to approach it more efficiently this year, this blog will guide you through the essentials.
Topics: Business Planning, FedEx Ground, Financial, fedex ground contractors, transportation business, fec, peak, schedule K
Recently, we’ve developed a new set of services that we call the Business Support System. While adding new clients to the system, something unexpected has come to light about the root cause of what makes even well run operations sometimes experience business crippling financial challenges.
It's Process Inconsistency.
This particular revelation came about from listening to current contractors and how they plan on utilizing our new system.
Some of the more savvy, veteran contractors were not looking at the system as merely a way to lighten their administrative load, but they see value in how the ETB programs will give them “Process Consistency”. They are looking for this as they get set to face the challenges of the new Express / Ground world.
When we set out to spread the word about our new system, we thought it would appeal to mostly new contractors. Much to our surprise, the response from seasoned CSPs has been strong. They understand that the “logistics” part of the biz is important, but so equally is the “business / money part” of it, maybe more now than ever.
Let's take a deeper look...
Topics: Financial, fedex ground contractors, fedex ground legal advice, transportation business, fdx, fec
We've got some news that's making waves in our circle. A new lawsuit has popped up concerning contractor status. It's stirring quite a bit of chatter, and we at eTruckBiz think it's crucial to chat about it, especially since it touches on the heart of our operations – the independent contractor model.
Topics: FedEx, ISP, FedEx Ground, Business, Contract, Negotiation, contractor, Financial, Network 2.0, Margins, fedex legal issues, low cost model, fedex ground contractors, fedex ground legal advice, fxg, fedex lawsuit, Spencer patton, Patton Logistics, CSP
It has been a long time since economic conditions were favorable for a package rate war between UPS & FedEx.
In fact, because of generally good economic conditions, until a couple of years ago, there was little need for our two favorite competitors to try to steal each other’s business. A rising tide had been raising all boats, even including regional package carriers. Most indicators were signaling that there would never be another true price “war” like there was in the early 90’s, the early 2000’s or the period from 2008 - 2010.
Everything was stable in “pricing-land”...
Until it wasn’t.
Topics: FedEx, FedEx Ground, Business, Negotiation, contractor, Financial, Margins
By any measure, it’s been, and continues to be, a challenging time to be running a transportation business. However, as we often see, there are many opportunities that present themselves during challenging times.
As we look ahead to better times in 2023, it’s important to take a look at where we are currently at and how we got here so that we avoid mistakes of the past.
Our current situation is rooted in the events of 2019. This period introduced the density-stop / ecommerce push from FedEx Ground. As ecommerce deliveries gained traction and increased in number, they fueled the deterioration of contractor per-stop operating margins.
As you know, ecommerce stops are paid at a lower rate and typically include fewer packages per stop vs. commercial stops, resulting in a stealthy revenue per stop decrease across your entire business.
Topics: Business Planning, Bookeeping, Management, Business Metrics, ISP, Business, Money, Cash flow, Inflation, Costs, Financial, Margins
So as you might imagine, there is a considerable amount of chatter out there about some recent, controversial events.
Many want to know what we think about the whole situation.
We’re going to give you some thoughts, but I’d like to point out our perspective on the matter first.
Topics: Law, Management, FedEx Ground, Business, Investment, Agreement, consulting, Money, settlement, renegotiation, Financial
By now, it’s easy to see that everyone’s operating margins are being seriously squeezed.
In an effort to force some sort of helpful response, some made a plea to FXG asking for assistance in various areas to solve a worsening financial situation.
Trust us when we say that FXG is very aware of the plight of CSP & TSP’s.
But now, there is another added challenge that has reared its head. This one, along with inflation not seen for generations, is going to create some unprecedented financial problems that will test even the best operators…
Topics: Business Results, Bookeeping, Training, Intelligence, Business Metrics, Negotiation, Profit, consulting, Money, Cash flow, Inflation, Costs, recession, expenses, renegotiation, Financial, Rates