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Use of mini-bids‘ blowing up’ as shippers seek shrinking truck capacity
By Dan Ronan
US shippers suffering from truck pricing whiplash are turning to short-term contracts called mini-bids more than ever before, hoping to secure capacity ahead of rate hikes.
It is a sign of how competitive and volatile the US freight market is becoming as trucking’ s peak season approaches, rates keep climbing and available capacity shrinks.
The trend also underscores how the collapse of truckload capacity is creating a marketplace focused on the short-term, rather than long-term needs and relationships.
Trucking executives, analysts and procurement experts say the use of mini-bids is accelerating as annual contracts fail to keep pace with the freight market.
“ Mini-bid and turnback bid activity is persisting, if not increasing,” Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings CEO Adam Miller said during an earnings call last month.
Werner Enterprises is seeing“ large-scale, kind of minibids and rebids of routing guides that have blown up,” CEO Derek Leathers said during a July earnings call.
“ We’ re seeing shorter contracts. There is a lot of uncertainty [ and ] a lot less capacity.”
For many shippers, procurement is becoming more dynamic as they respond to rapidly changing capacity and pricing conditions.
“ I’ d almost like to get rid of the‘ mini-bid’ term,” Spencer Frazier, executive vice president of sales and marketing at J. B. Hunt Transport Services, said during a recent earnings call.“ They are structurally large bids as customers are competing for capacity to reset their networks.”
Joel Goldstein, chief executive of retail distributor Mr. Checkout, said retailers are seeing more mini-bids and shorter contract terms as freight markets tighten.
“ There are many more mini-bids being offered,” Goldstein said.“ We’ re seeing shorter contracts. There is a lot of uncertainty. There is a lot less capacity.”
The Journal of Commerce Truckload Capacity Index( TCI) fell 1.1 percentage points, to 78.7 in the second quarter from the first quarter, with large carriers holding the line on fleet expansion.
‘ A different process’
Chris Caplice, executive director of MIT FreightLab, said mini-bids should not be viewed as replacements for annual transportation bids.
“ This is not new,” Caplice told the Journal of Commerce.“ I’ ve heard the term mini-bids since I was a doctoral student in the mid-1990s.”
Procurement is becoming more dynamic as shippers respond to rapid capacity and pricing changes. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
10 Journal of Commerce | September 7, 2026 www. joc. com