“We’ve been able to recoup the $4,000 per month we were being overcharged by carriers. So MachShip hasn’t cost us a cent.”

Craig Coulton

General Manager

Customer Spotlight

Global Truck Imports

Global Truck Imports were losing money on freight overcharges and struggling to consistently source carriers for oversized goods. They just wish they’d switched to MachShip years ago.

Global Truck Imports is an importer and distributor of truck parts throughout Australia and the Pacific region. They deal with a diverse range of customers, selling to retail, wholesale, and trade companies.

General Manager, Craig Coulton spent a lot of time on admin trying to join the dots with transport providers who could handle their particular freight specs. That was before they linked up with MachShip at the end of 2022.

“We tried the regular shipping platforms that come standard with a lot of software packages, and we just found that those packages weren’t suitable for our business,” he said.

“The specific reason we chose MachShip as our shipping platform was the ability to deal with multiple locations, which is something that’s not standard in the off-the-shelf solutions. When you run more than one warehouse, you need to have that option available. We needed to provide that option for customers on our website.“

Easy to get up & running

“The integration was spot on. And it caters for our product range, which, in the truck industry, means a lot of oversized packages. Also the calculator works perfectly with our website, which is on the Magento platform.”

“What we like about MachShip is the ability to save regular items. That means our sales team can quickly get an accurate shipping quote while on the phone to customers in real time.”

“By being able to save items and the general configuration, we could select numerous shipping agents that weren’t available with other shipping solutions. That was a bonus for us.”

“The onboarding was very smooth. We had a dedicated Project Manager who worked closely with us. It was actually a lot easier than we thought.”

“We were taught how to update fuel levies easily. That’s important because these levies are constantly changing. The information centre and the tutorial documents that MachShip provides are really handy as well.”

“The ongoing support with MachShip has been excellent. If there’s a problem, we raise a ticket and it’s usually solved within 12 hours.”

Better than ‘cost neutral’

Aside from ease of use, the biggest value-add according to Craig has been the cost savings.

“The cost of MachShip has been offset by the money we’ve been able to recoup from previously being overcharged by freight carriers. It’s surprising how much we were being overcharged. Being able to reconcile freight suppliers’ invoices with our quotes generated in MachShip has led to huge recoveries of overcharges, to the point that we’re actually in front. So, effectively, MachShip hasn’t cost us a cent.”

“We used to get ripped off by $4000 a month [by carriers]. But we didn’t know, because there was no way to easily reconcile what you’d been quoted versus what you’d get charged. And that extra cost was only being caused by about 20 consignments a month. For example, consignments that might have been quoted at $200 would end up being charged around $600.”

“It’s paid for itself. When we were in negotiations with MachShip to start with, they told us it would end up cost-neutral. But we’re actually in front.”

Keeping up with moving goalposts

An ongoing challenge for Global Truck Imports is the need to keep up with fluctuating fuel levies.

“Freight fuel levies change all the time. It can be tedious to keep updating them. It’s a pain, because you never know what your fuel levy is if you’re not running through a shipping platform. You’re juggling all these different supplier platforms that becomes quite time-consuming.”

“With MachShip, it’s easy. It’s all handled in one page per freight company — within the same platform — and it’s done in a matter of minutes. The ability to control all your shipping and admin in one platform is something we should’ve moved to years ago.”

Handling hefty items & more carrier options

“We ship about 200 parcels a week. In the scheme of things, that might not sound like much. But it’s a lot of truck parts. These are large boxes — they’re specific and fragile. The ability to handle all of this in one platform and pick the best freight carrier for our type of goods saves us a lot of time.”

“Because the track pads come in such a large box, it’s so important that the freight cost is accurate. With our warehouses, we have one on the east coast and one on the west coast of Australia. And it’s crucial that the correct warehouse is chosen while quoting our freight, otherwise this leads to lost sales.”

“We used to have to go to numerous freight company websites to get quotes or create consignments. There’s no need to do that anymore. We just handle it all in MachShip, and we’re able to pick the best carrier for the job.”

“When you work with some FMS platforms, they normally deal with carriers that are set up out of the US, like UPS, USPS, FedEx and so on. You can’t even use those in Australia, really.

“With MachShip, we’re able to use all the carriers we were using before we came onboard with them. But we’re also able to find a hell of a lot more carriers that we didn’t even know existed. So it’s given us a lot more freight options.”

“We should’ve moved across to MachShip years ago. But when you don’t know, you don’t know.”

Global Truck Imports were losing money on freight overcharges and struggling to consistently source carriers for oversized goods. They just wish they’d switched to MachShip years ago.

Easy to get up & running

Better than ‘cost neutral’

Keeping up with moving goalposts

Handling hefty items & more carrier options

Access the MachShip eBook

Take the first step to easier freight management.