Two terms that many people use interchangeably in the car transport service industry today are auto transport brokers and car carriers. If you’re interested in buying your first vehicle in the coming days, weeks, or months, knowing how to ship the vehicle efficiently, safely, and timely should be your priority.
When deciding the best auto shipping for your vehicle today, three companies that come to mind are:
- Car carriers
- Auto transport brokers, and
- Broker-carriers
Although these car transport service providers have a few things in common, they deliver different services. In the rest of this post, you’ll discover the pros and cons of hiring car carriers or transport brokers for your auto shipping needs.
Understanding what auto transport brokers and car carriers do
- What exactly do auto transport brokers do?
Auto transport brokers are car transport service companies that have strong connections with a large network of car carriers. These companies (or individuals) aren’t responsible for directly shipping vehicles to their final destinations. This is simply because they don’t have any trucks of their own. Instead, they act as a middleman in the industry.
- As a customer looking to ship your vehicle, an auto transport broker can help you find and choose the best car carrier for your vehicle. They factor in your destination, time frame, and other important factors when searching for the right carrier for your auto shipping needs.
- That’s not all; the role of a reliable auto transport broker also includes managing and coordinating everything that has to do with the shipment of your vehicle to the final destination. By hiring a broker, you (as a customer) need not stress yourself about the shipment process. You can focus your time on other important tasks while the transport broker handles the entire shipment process on your behalf.
- Unless you get recommendations from friends and family, it’s usually very hard to find the best car carriers. A quick search of auto shipping services on top search engines will only show the list of brokers instead of carriers. This happens because most carriers aren’t really great with marketing their business online. Brokers do the entire marketing job and then connect the customers to suitable carriers for auto shipping.
- What exactly do car carriers do?
Unlike auto transport brokers, car carriers actually have the fleet of trucks to convey your vehicle directly to its destination. In most cases, car carriers are the service providers that’ll show up to pick your vehicle from one location and deliver it to another.
You need to also keep in mind that some companies in the car transport service industry combine the two aforementioned services (auto brokers and car carriers). These companies are known as broker-carriers. They are licensed auto brokers that also have their fleet of trucks for auto shipping of vehicles from one location to another.
Reasons to hire a car carrier or auto transport broker
Both car carriers and auto transport brokers have their strengths and weaknesses. Before deciding to hire any company today, ensure to factor in their pros and cons.
- Auto transport brokers offer their customers flexibility – this explains why they are very relevant in the industry today. As earlier mentioned, the best brokers, which you can hire at Universal Transit, have a strong connection with different carriers. As such, it’s very easy for them to find you the best carrier that’ll meet your auto shipping needs.
- It takes a lot of time, research, and effort to find the best car carrier to transport your vehicle to its final destination. To save time and stress, hiring a reliable and reputable auto transport broker is the way forward. With the right broker, you can quickly find a carrier that’ll meet your needs.
- Another good thing about the best auto brokers is that they can always handle everything that has to do with auto shipping management.
- If you can find a car carrier easily, this is certainly the better option for you. Having a one point of contact will help you deal directly with the driver dispatching your vehicle. Since no middleman is involved, hiring a car carrier will also save you some money for other tasks.
You can visit Universal Transit today to find the best auto brokers or car carriers for your auto shipping needs.