Freight Spot Rates Explained: A Practical Guide for Shippers
Spot freight has been a core part of transportation planning for years, influencing everything from daily coverage decisions to overall…
Deliver on customer promises without disruption
Bring stability to retail transportation with unified control that keeps teams ahead of market volatility.
Manage retail transportation with clarity
Unite your transportation ecosystem with one industry-leading solution so your team can move faster, stay aligned, and scale without friction.
%+
more efficient
%
transportation cost savings
Protect margins as markets shift
Keep your retail network in sync through rate spikes, tight delivery windows, and compliance pressure with full operational control.
Control cost-to-serve
Make smarter rate and routing decisions with help from automated optimization that finds the best options fast.
Minimize delivery risk
Avoid missed ETAs, dock delays, and on-time in-full (OTIF) exposure using real-time visibility that surfaces issues before service breaks.
Keep teams aligned
Unite carriers, vendors, and internal stakeholders with one shared workflow to keep collaboration strong and shipments on track.
Turn transportation control into measurable results
Run parcel and freight shipments through one connected system that gives retail teams clear visibility, end-to-end control, and confidence in every move.
Simplify carrier management
Build and manage a carrier mix that excels in every lane so you can meet speed and cost goals when promotions spike demand.
Minimize manual touchpoints
Remove repetitive follow-ups, re-tendering, and exception work with configurable automation built for omnichannel fulfillment.
Track cost and service trends
Turn shipment activity into clear insights on how to reduce cost-to-serve drift and service risk across carriers, lanes, and modes.
Close freight with confidence
Back invoices with shipment activity to limit disputes, improve billing accuracy, and keep freight spend predictable as volumes grow.
Deliver better business outcomes across industries
Rely on proven technology designed to perform wherever timing, service expectations, and freight security matter most.
Industry-backed results
x
daily orders per employee
K+
orders processed annually
With Descartes 3G TMS, we can build in constraints based on customer delivery requirements. The solution takes those constraints into consideration, so it really cuts the amount of rework we have to do with a load after we build it. It drives savings.
At AmerCareRoyal, we think of ourselves as a non-commodity partner in a highly commoditized industry: price and service, not product, are our differentiators. So that means we really have to nail those, and that’s why we turned to Descartes. It’s allowed us to pursue simultaneous cost-reduction and service-enhancement strategies and the TMS has been the key. It’s made us a stronger team and a stronger partner to our customers.
We’d been manually routing our freight and the number of iterations to accomplish pool consolidation, but we knew we were leaving money on the table. We needed transportation management software to help us automate the planning, plus take into account data points like fuel surcharges and intermodal rates, which have become extremely important in recent years. Descartes 3G TMS knew our operations and we liked the fact that the TMS was oriented toward pool consolidations, it’s the core, principled system that moves us every day.
News & Insights
Freight Spot Rates Explained: A Practical Guide for Shippers
Why North American Shippers Run Transportation Differently
Check out eight industry trends that stand out for North American Shippers, along with practical considerations for your operations.
Configure Your TMS: From Simple Tweaks to Advanced Automation
In the fast-paced world of logistics, no two businesses are the same. That’s why flexibility and adaptability are cornerstones of…