Summary: An LTL rate shop asks every carrier you picked for a rate and waits for all of them, so one carrier whose rating is slow holds up the whole rate shop and its own rate can come back blank. Take that carrier out of the rate shop while it is slow.
Problem
LTL rate shopping takes much longer than usual, and one carrier's rate does not come back for some destinations. Each of the other carriers rates quickly on its own, and the slow carrier's own website gives you a quote with no delay.
Cause
A rate shop asks every carrier you selected for a rate and waits for the answers. If one carrier's rating service is slow or timing out on their end, it holds up the whole rate shop and can leave that carrier's rate blank on some lanes.
A quick quote on the carrier's website does not rule this out. The website and the rating service are different paths, and the rating service can be slow while the website is fine. The case this came from was Old Dominion (ODFL), but any LTL carrier can do it.
How to check: take the carrier you suspect out of the rate shop and rate again. If the rest come back at normal speed, you have found it.
Fix
- Take the suspect carrier out of the rate shop and check the others rate at normal speed. That gets your day-to-day speed back.
- Quote the same lane on that carrier's own website, so you know whether the delay is on their side.
- Get the timing on record: rate a shipment with that carrier in the rate shop and a shipment number assigned, and rate it as normal without sending it. That writes a log entry with the rate timings.
- Email support@shipstore.com with the carrier, the lane, and roughly when you rated, so the timings can be pulled and the carrier contacted if the delay is on their end.
- Put the carrier back in the rate shop once their rating recovers, and rate a few lanes to check the speed.
What you should see
With the slow carrier out, the rate shop returns the other carriers at normal speed. When the carrier recovers and you add it back, rates come back for the lanes that were blank, with no long wait.
Related articles
- Everything slows down after adding a rate shop rule (rule loop)
- Old Dominion (ODFL) stopped working: legacy API endpoint retired
- An Old Dominion (ODFL) LTL shipment fails with a carrier error