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Drop-and-hook strategies — Great Quarter, Guys

What are they and who has the best one?

Great Quarter, Guys is a podcast full of healthy debate between Andrew Cox and Seth Holm and on this episode they dive into the differences between drop-and-hook strategies in logistics. 

First on the debate slate is the classic segment, “You care or nah?” Cox starts off with the news of Tesla buying up some Bitcoin, which Cox says is “forward looking” for the company. Tesla is going to both accept Bitcoin as payment as well as use it as stored value. 

Target’s activewear line All In Motion has now topped $1 billion in sales as it competes with Lululemon. Holm cares because it highlights Target’s continued success with starting in-house brands. 

Family Dollar is the newest chain to tap Instacart for same-day delivery, but Holm doesn’t care — just because of his lack of experience shopping at Family Dollar. Cox agrees, saying he doesn’t see the point of using a delivery service with a midrange cost to deliver discount products. 


Peloton is investing $100 million in expediting its supply chains and Holm cares for the symbolism of getting the company back online with its expected shipping times. 

Organization outfit The Container Store reported fourth-quarter earnings with gross margins slipping double digits. Holm cares because it indicates the issues the company is seeing in its overall supply chain.

The big debate for this episode is between drop-and-hook strategies. Drop-and-hook involves truck drivers dropping off a full load and picking up an empty container to return. 

Holm says the best drop-and-hook networks are found in freight hubs with lots of congestion: the I-5 corridor, the Texas Triangle and the Atlanta area. 


Cox says the three companies with the best models are Knight-Swift, Arrive and Uber Freight. The guys break down the pros and cons of each model and the future of those models in 2021.
 
You can find more Great Quarter, Guys recaps and recaps for all our live podcasts here.

Kaylee Nix

Kaylee Nix is a meteorologist and reporter for FreightWaves. She joined the company in November of 2020 after spending two years as a broadcast meteorologist for a local television channel in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Kaylee graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2018 and immediately made the Tennessee Valley her home. Kaylee creates written summaries of FreightWaves live podcasts and cultivates the social media for FreightWaves TV.