What I am going to say will probably not be liked by everyone in the logistics industry.
For years, one of the most common complaints I have heard from freight forwarders, transport companies, 3PLs, and other logistics service providers is that customers are becoming increasingly price-driven. Shippers send an RFQ to ten or more companies. Competitors cut rates to win volume. Customers negotiate every euro. Eventually, someone says logistics has become a commodity, and customers no longer appreciate good service.
There is certainly truth in this. Logistics is a highly competitive industry; capacity affects pricing; procurement departments have become more sophisticated; and technology has made comparing suppliers easier. There will also always be customers for whom price is the dominant purchasing criterion.
But I think we also need to acknowledge a more uncomfortable part of the story.
In many cases, the logistics industry created its own price problem.
We have spent decades improving our ability to move freight while paying considerably less attention to improving our ability to sell the value of moving it. We have invested in trucks, terminals, warehouses, TMS platforms, automation, tracking systems, and operational processes. At the same time, many companies have done surprisingly little strategic work around positioning, differentiation, sales processes, negotiation skills, and customer communication.
Then we enter the market looking remarkably similar to our competitors and become frustrated when customers compare us on the easiest thing available: price.
If Everyone Says the Same Thing, What Else Should Customers Compare?
Look at the websites of ten freight forwarders or transport companies and do a Pepsi & Coke test: remove their logos. In many cases, it becomes surprisingly difficult to identify which company is which.
Almost everyone is reliable. Everyone is flexible. Everyone has an experienced team. Everyone provides tailor-made solutions. Everyone puts the customer first. Everyone has a global network. And so on.
These statements are not necessarily false. The problem is that competitors are saying exactly the same things.
Imagine that you are a shipper choosing between five logistics providers. All of them are saying the same things. Then five quotations arrive. One is €1,420. Another is €1,390. Another is €1,360.
Suddenly the price difference is extremely clear, while the value difference is almost impossible to see. From the customer’s perspective, comparing price is completely rational. But putting pain points on the price tag is a logistics company’s job.
Many Logistics Companies Have Never Really Defined Their Strengths
One fundamental problem is the lack of strategic marketing in logistics.
By strategic marketing, I do not mean posting three times per week on LinkedIn, buying advertisements, redesigning the website, or attending another logistics exhibition. Those are tactical marketing activities. They are not a marketing strategy.
Strategic marketing starts with much more fundamental questions.
Which customers are we actually best positioned to serve? Which problems do we solve better than our competitors? Where does our operational model create measurable value? Which customers value those capabilities enough to pay for them? Why do our best customers stay with us? Why have we won important accounts in the past? Why have we lost others? Where are we genuinely different, and where are we simply telling ourselves that we are different?
A transport company, for example, might discover that its real competitive strength is not simply “transport between Germany and France.” Perhaps its operational model makes it particularly strong for industrial manufacturers where delivery reliability matters because late components can interrupt production. Another forwarder might be exceptionally good at handling complicated communication between multiple suppliers. A warehouse operator might have developed unusual expertise in managing seasonal peaks without forcing customers into excessive permanent capacity.
Those are much more commercially interesting positions than “reliable logistics solutions.”
But discovering them requires research. It requires talking to customers, analyzing won and lost business, looking at profitability by customer segment, understanding competitors, and involving operations in commercial strategy. Many logistics companies have never done this work systematically.
Operational Differentiation Is Worth Nothing If Sales Cannot Explain It
Another interesting contradiction exists in logistics. I regularly see companies that are genuinely different operationally but sell themselves as if they are not. Working with logistics providers, I see that companies have their unique differentiators. Internally, everyone knows this. But ask a salesperson to explain why this matters financially to the customer, and the answer often becomes much weaker.
Imagine two transport providers offering similar prices. One says: “We have very good communication and always keep customers informed.” That sounds nice, but almost every competitor could say it.
The other salesperson asks how the customer currently manages delivery exceptions. They discover that when something goes wrong, the customer’s logistics team spends hours calling carriers, updating production, and informing customers. They then explain how their exception-management process works, who communicates with whom, how quickly problems are escalated, and provide an example of how they handled a similar disruption for another manufacturer. Now communication is no longer a vague promise.
Yet We Rarely Teach Logistics People How to Sell
This leads to another reason why the industry has contributed to its own pricing problem.
Sales development in logistics is often surprisingly informal. A very typical story about becoming a sales rep within logistics: someone starts in operations. They understand transport. They move into sales or account management. They receive a CRM login (another topic of interest, as not all sales teams use CRMs in logistics), a company presentation, and a list of prospects (another topic of interest, as not many provide these lists).
And now they are expected to sell. But understanding logistics and knowing how to sell logistics are two different capabilities.
How many logistics salespeople have received serious training in discovery? How many have been taught how to quantify the financial consequences of a customer’s logistics problems? How many understand different negotiation strategies? How many know how to handle procurement without immediately giving away margin? How many have systematically trained communication skills for difficult customer conversations?
There are certainly excellent companies that invest heavily in these areas. But across the industry, it is far from universal.
This is especially problematic because logistics sales conversations can become technical very quickly. Salespeople feel comfortable discussing lanes, pallets, modes, loading meters, transit times, and rates because these are familiar subjects.
On the other hand:
- they don’t know why the customer is considering another supplier;
- they don’t know what is wrong with the existing setup;
- they don’t know what delays cost the business;
- they don’t know which stakeholders are affected when something goes wrong;
- they don’t know whether procurement, operations, or management ultimately determines the decision.
Without this knowledge, sales teams leave a lot of money on the table for competition.
When I Say Organizations, I Also Mean Individuals
It would also be too easy to make this purely a management problem. Individual salespeople and account managers contribute to commoditization as well.
If your main prospecting message is “We provide transportation across Europe, can we quote your lanes?”, you have positioned yourself as another quotation provider before the relationship has even started.
If every follow-up says, “Do you have anything we could quote?”, you are training the prospect to contact you when they need another price.
If every customer meeting revolves around rates, shipments, and operational issues, don’t be surprised if the customer sees you as a transport supplier rather than a strategic partner.
If your role as an account manager is mainly to send invoices, solve operational issues, answer emails, and react when the customer needs something, you are managing transactions rather than developing an account. Good account management should continuously uncover new needs, demonstrate the value you already create, identify opportunities to improve the customer’s business, and build relationships beyond the day-to-day contact.
This is why sales, communication, and negotiation skills matter so much.
Our Sales Processes Often Reinforce the Same Problem
The absence of structured sales processes makes the situation worse.
Many logistics companies have a quotation process, but not necessarily a sales process. An inquiry arrives. Someone calculates the price. The quote is sent. A salesperson follows up. The customer negotiates. The shipment is won or lost. Operationally, this can be extremely efficient. Commercially, it can be disastrous.
A proper sales process should force the organization to understand the opportunity before proposing a solution. It should define what needs to be discovered, who needs to be involved, what evidence of value should be presented, and what needs to happen before the opportunity moves forward.
The same applies to sales playbooks. If a company decides that food manufacturers are a strategic customer segment, salespeople should not be left to invent the approach individually. The organization should understand the typical logistics problems in that segment, decision-makers, buying triggers, objections, relevant case studies, discovery questions, competitive alternatives, and value propositions.
That is how organizational knowledge becomes a repeatable commercial capability.
Marketing and Sales Often Operate in Different Universes
A significant disconnect also exists between logistics marketing and logistics sales.
Marketing publishes something about sustainability. Sales is negotiating rates with a manufacturing company. Marketing publishes a photograph from a trade fair. Sales is trying to convince a procurement manager to switch providers. Marketing creates a case study. Sales does not even know it exists. And we could think of many other typical situations.
This is a missed opportunity.
Good logistics marketing should make sales conversations easier. Content should be built around actual customer concerns and different stages of the buying journey. If salespeople regularly encounter customers worried about road-freight capacity, marketing can create useful analysis around capacity risk and contingency planning. Sales can then use that content before or after meetings.
If procurement pushes aggressively on rates, marketing can help explain the total cost of logistics failures rather than simply talking about transport prices. These may seem like small things, but together they change the commercial conversation. Marketing creates the narrative. Sales brings that narrative into the customer’s specific situation. Operations provides the evidence.
That is much stronger than three departments operating separately.
We Need to Take Some Responsibility for the Market We Created
Logistics sales professionals have spent years saying that customers only care about price. Maybe it is time to ask ourselves what we have taught customers to care about.
If we approach them with generic prospecting, present generic capabilities, ask generic questions, send a quotation, and then negotiate mainly by changing the number, we have designed a buying experience centered around price. The good news is that this also means logistics companies and sales professionals have more control over the problem than they might think.
About the Author:
Thomas Ananjevas is a seasoned supply chain professional with 18 years of experience in purchasing and selling logistics services and building supply chains from the ground up.
Today, he helps freight forwarders, transportation companies, 3PLs, warehousing providers, logistics technology companies, and other supply chain businesses improve their sales performance, strengthen their market positioning, and build scalable growth systems.
As the creator of the Logistics Growth Blueprint, Tomas works with companies to identify commercial bottlenecks, eliminate revenue leakage, improve customer acquisition, increase customer retention, and create more predictable growth without relying solely on price competition.
In addition to consulting, Tomas delivers training programs in sales, marketing, leadership, and customer experience for logistics organizations worldwide. He is also the creator of The Logistics Newsletter.
