BulkLoads.com, the online load board to match truck capacity to haulers needing to move bulk commodities like grains, has signed a deal to have its transportation management system (TMS) built into a third-party platform.
Jared Finn, the operating partner with BulkLoads, said his service will be built into the commodity offering of Barchart, known as cmdtyViewPro. The third-party channel agreement is the first for BulkLoads.
By doing so, as Barchart said in its prepared statement announcing the agreement, it would “(allow) shippers to manage their entire load cycle in one simplified and interactive front end.”
Finn, in an interview with FreightWaves, said that on “any given day” BulkLoads has 50,000 plus loads of bulk commodities listed on its platform, which will continue to operate separately after the BulkTMS platform is integrated into Barchart.
Finn said that in 2019, the company moved almost $90 billion in commodities across the platform, a number that was kept in check by the massive flooding that hit the U.S. Midwest that year. That figure is expected to grow by 50% in 2020, he added.
“We have a lot of the same or similar clients so it is perfect to work with them to provide the freight piece as well as the merchandising piece,” Finn said.
Finn said many of BulkLoads clients are using Barchart’s commodity offerings to get real-time futures prices. Building BulkLoads into the offering of Barchart will enable a one-stop location “so you don’t have to manage flow in five or six different environments,” Finn said.
In the prepared statement, Barchart’s head of strategy Keith Petersen said the company is “[focusing] on providing the best tools for grain merchandisers and incorporating BulkLoads into our products does exactly that.”
Finn said the goal of the collaboration is not to share fees paid to the two platforms but “to bring together two valuable systems that are offering their product to the same clients in one ecosystem.”
In the prepared statement, Finn described BulkLoads this way: “From sending load offers that can be negotiated or automatically booked by carriers in the BulkLoads mobile app to viewing digital tickets and grading details in real-time, the BulkTMS platform makes the load lifecycle more efficient and collaborative.”
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