Fireside Chat: Shipping rates still low, says KCH Transportation director of pricing

This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ Domestic Supply Chain Summit on Wednesday.

FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: 2025 Outlook and Beyond with Henry Byers

DETAILS: Henry Byers, Director of Pricing at KCH Transportation joins us to talk about what to watch for in 2025 including pricing trends, trucking capacity and macroeconomic impacts.

KEY QUOTES FROM HENRY BYERS:

“I think overall, as far as rates are concerned, it seems to me that a lot of shippers are still securing really unrealistically low rates. I think there’s still people in the brokerage landscape — or companies in the brokerage landscape, I should say — asset-based carriers potentially still pricing freight really close to where the spot market currently is. It seems to me that if the market were to truly turn up in 2025, which I think this next cycle has obviously begun, then there’s a lot of exposure on the table. And, we can see a lot of failure in some of those routing guides. It’s been really surprising to see just how competitive the rates are.”

“Right upon Trump’s election, we started to see import volumes lift again. … Basically what we’ve seen over the last six to 12 months, we have seen a pretty high concentration of those import volumes coming into Southern California. After we pass that major peak holiday retail season, things kind of calm down as far as the demand side of the U.S. But I do think that’s the thing that’s pretty major on the radar.”

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