Dry Van Freight Broker: How to Find Shippers and Win Direct Lanes

Dry van moves almost everything that fits in a standard 53-foot box, which means the list of shippers is huge and mostly useless unless you narrow it. The brokers who build a book don't try to be everything to everyone. They pick a vertical or two where they actually understand the freight, then become the obvious call for that shipper's trucks. A related note before you narrow: many of these same companies also ship pallet quantities, and the freight you turn away as too small is exactly what an LTL freight broker builds a book on — worth knowing before you decline it.

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) is the headline vertical and the steadiest base for a dry van broker. Food and beverage manufacturers, paper products companies, personal care (beauty, health, cleaning, hygiene), and general merchandise all move enormous volume. The freight is contract-based, recurring, and the shipper cares about consistency and on-time delivery far more than squeezing another dime per mile. CPG shippers have logistics departments that plan freight weeks in advance, which is the opposite of the spot-market grind.

Retail inbound is the second heavy hitter, and the most seasonal. Big-box retailers, e-commerce fulfillment centers, and regional retail chains all pull freight from warehouses and suppliers on contracted lanes. Volume spikes hard into seasonal retail periods and drops off sharply in slower months. A broker who understands retail demand curves and can position capacity before surges hit is worth real money to a distributor trying to meet retail windows.

Paper and building products is steadier than retail but still seasonal on construction cycles. Paper mills, cardboard manufacturers, lumber distributors, and gypsum suppliers all ship palletized product on regional and national lanes. Downstream demand — manufacturers who use cardboard boxes, retailers who buy corrugated — drives paper mill shipments in cycles. Paper shippers are particularly price-sensitive because their margins are thin and their volume is high, but they also value carriers and brokers who won't disappear mid-season.

Plastics is the final vertical in the mix — resin manufacturers, molded products, plastic film, and converted plastics all move in bulk, often in backhaul positions on lanes otherwise driven by the heavier verticals above. Plastics shippers tend to be smaller, more technical, and highly price-driven, so margin here is tighter than in CPG, but the volume can be steady year-round. The key to plastics is understanding the equipment needs (moisture- and contamination-sensitive product means the shipper will specify a clean, dry, odor-free trailer, and some resin moves in bulk equipment rather than vans) and positioning yourself as reliable on what's often an overlooked lane.

Dry van brokerage services are what a shipper buys when it hands a 53-foot enclosed-trailer load to a broker instead of calling a carrier directly. The broker finds and vets a truck, agrees the rate, books the appointments, tracks the load, deals with whatever goes wrong at the dock, invoices the shipper, and pays the carrier. The truck itself is a commodity. The services wrapped around it are what a shipper is really comparing when two brokers quote within a few cents of each other.

That matters for prospecting because a shipper rarely says 'I need capacity.' They say a carrier fell off a load, a delivery missed its appointment, a detention bill showed up that nobody approved, or tracking went dark for a day. Each of those complaints maps to one of the services below, and the broker who asks about the specific failure gets further than the one who opens with lanes and equipment.

One note on scope. A broker arranges transportation; a carrier performs it. If you run trucks and hold brokerage authority, say plainly which loads go on your own equipment and which you broker out. Shippers who have dealt with double-brokering tend to ask, and a vague answer ends the conversation faster than a high rate does.

Dry van seasonality matters in retail and is softer in CPG and paper, but it exists everywhere, and a broker who anticipates instead of reacting wins. Back-to-school (summer months) pulls enormous volume to retail DCs as distributors stock shelves. Holiday periods ramp volume as retailers prepare for seasonal buying. January and the early months of the year typically see softer retail demand. CPG is steadier, but it has its own rhythm — food and beverage manufacturers run continuous production, but volume responds to holidays, seasonal products, and consumer buying patterns.

Paper and cardboard demand tracks downstream industrial activity. When manufacturers and retailers are gearing up for busy periods, they're building inventory of boxes and materials months ahead. A shipper buying corrugated cartons in volume is ordering materials from the mill well before the freight moves. That's the moment to have an established relationship.

The intelligence piece is watching for signals that a vertical is about to get busy. A retail chain announcing a new product line launch, a CPG manufacturer opening a new production facility, a distributor hiring logistics coordinators and warehouse staff — these are buying signals telling you capacity demand is about to spike. A shipper worried about covering peak season is far more receptive to a new carrier or broker relationship than one in steady state.

The practical move is to build your target list by vertical, then time your cold outreach to land before each vertical experiences its busy periods. That timing discipline is punishing to maintain by hand across dozens of accounts at different seasons, which is exactly the kind of thing automation is built for. Our guide on freight broker prospecting breaks down how to run an outreach cadence in detail.

If you're going to anchor a dry van book in one vertical, CPG is the most defensible. Food and beverage manufacturers, personal care companies, and snack producers all ship on contract with regular lanes. The shipper plans freight weeks in advance, tender forecasts are predictable, and the transportation manager cares about the carrier being there consistently, not about beating the rate down another dime.

Start by identifying the companies. Trace the supply chain: where do grocery stores and big-box retailers buy from? Where do warehouses and distribution centers source inventory? CPG manufacturers cluster regionally — different regions have different concentrations of production. A broker in any major market targeting CPG has a natural geography advantage and a clear target list.

Lead your outreach with their problem, not your capacity. A CPG logistics manager doesn't want to hear you move 'general freight nationwide.' They want to hear that you understand contract lanes, you'll cover the same lane every week consistently, you can handle their dock requirements and appointment windows, and you won't disappear when the season shifts. For asset carriers, own equipment and consistent driver assignments are the sharpest edges — same truck, same driver, the shipper knows who's picking up their load every Tuesday.

The deeper play is understanding their business. Once you understand what drives their freight patterns, you can reach out in the planning windows — the weeks when they're thinking about next season's capacity — instead of calling cold and hoping they're in buying mode. A CPG shipper planning procurement is in a very different headspace than one running steady-state operations.

Retail is the most overtly seasonal of the major dry van verticals, which means timing your prospecting is everything. The opportunity window is pronounced — certain months of the year — but the volume during those windows is enormous. A distributor shipping retail inbound during busy seasons is moving trucks daily, and whoever has the relationship wins the freight.

The decision-maker at a distributor or 3PL handling retail inbound is usually a transportation manager or logistics coordinator who's drowning in busy season and well-organized in the off-season. That person starts planning for peak retail periods several months in advance, when they're locking in capacity and negotiating contracts. That's the window to establish a relationship — not during peak season when they're managing chaos, and not in the slow months when they have no freight.

Lead with proof that you understand retail windows. A big-box retailer has dock appointment slots for specific times — sometimes a 30-minute window — and missing it means receiving room chaos or delivery delays. A carrier who shows up consistently on that window every week is not interchangeable with one who's 'close enough.' That obsession with appointment windows is the language that opens doors.

The volatility piece is honest: your freight volume will be highly uneven across the year. A smart broker uses busy-season relationships to build ongoing ones — move the freight cleanly, deliver on promise, and then ask the distributor about general volume freight during slower months. Some retail relationships can cycle into CPG or paper during off-season, turning a seasonal spike into a partial year-round lane.

Paper and cardboard manufacturing operate continuously, but demand from downstream is lumpy. Retail and manufacturing demand for corrugated boxes, packaging, and building materials follows business cycles. As distributors and manufacturers prepare for busy periods, they build inventory of materials, driving demand for mill freight weeks in advance.

Building materials — lumber, gypsum, concrete products, insulation — are tied to construction activity and weather. Warm months typically see more active construction, and freight increases accordingly. Winter in northern climates sees construction activity shift or pause, especially in the coldest months. A broker working national lanes can build a mix that smooths out these cycles — heavy in certain regions during their active season, leaning toward other regions during slower periods — instead of riding seasonal dips all the way down.

The key in this vertical is understanding the business logistics. Paper manufacturers often operate continuously, which means they ship on a predictable schedule. That predictability is valuable — you can tell a shipper 'I'll have a trailer on dock every week at a consistent time' and actually deliver on it. Lumber yards and distributors are more variable but respond to construction planning. A distributor gearing up for its busy season is a buying signal.

Price is a consideration in paper — margins are thin and volume is high — but the real value prop is reliability. A mill that gets its regular shipment on time, every time, with a carrier they can count on, isn't going to hunt for a cheaper alternative mid-season. That's where the margin lives: not in the rate per mile, but in being the carrier they don't have to think about.

In September 2026 the national average dry van spot rate was $3.01 a mile including fuel, and the average contract rate was $3.24 a mile, according to DAT Freight & Analytics' monthly report released October 13. Spot is what brokers paid carriers; contract is what shippers paid brokers and asset carriers. Excluding an estimated fuel surcharge, van spot linehaul was $2.17 a mile and contract linehaul was $2.40.

Fuel is the story of the quarter. DAT put the fuel portion of a van rate at a record 84 cents a mile in September, above the previous high of 75 cents set in June 2022, as the monthly national average diesel price passed $6 a gallon for the first time ($6.291). All-in van spot was up 96 cents from September 2025, yet van linehaul excluding fuel slipped 2 cents from August, and DAT's van Truckload Volume Index was down 1% from both August and a year earlier. Trucks cost more to run; there isn't more freight.

That changes how you quote. Spot rates are negotiated as a single price per mile with no separate fuel surcharge, and DAT's principal industry analyst Dean Croke put the lag plainly: 'Rates usually take three to four weeks to catch up with rising diesel prices, and carriers have to pay for fuel in the meantime.' A spot quote you gave a shipper two weeks ago may not buy a truck today, so date your quotes and say how long they hold. On contract freight, put the fuel surcharge schedule in writing; it is typically indexed to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's diesel price, which keeps both sides from renegotiating every time diesel moves.

Don't read the roughly 23-cent gap between the national contract and spot averages as your margin. The two averages cover different freight, lanes, and timing. What it does tell you is that contract freight priced loosely gets squeezed when costs move, which is why the accessorial terms on a dry van lane matter as much as the line rate.

Accessorials are where dry van margin quietly leaks. The ranges below are general approximations published by carrier-side sources (ATS and TrueNorth), not a rate sheet; your carriers and your shipper's routing guide set the real numbers. The point is to agree them in writing before the first load, not to discover them on the first invoice.

Dry van is the equipment type where the dock model changes the business most. On a live load, the driver backs in and waits while the shipper loads the trailer; a live unload is the same wait at the receiver. Free time, commonly two hours, goes fast at a busy facility, and everything past it becomes detention you bill, absorb, or argue about.

A drop trailer program stages trailers at the shipper's facility. The shipper loads on its own schedule, and the truck that arrives hooks a loaded trailer and leaves. Power-only is the related service where the broker hires a tractor and driver to pull a trailer the truck doesn't own: the shipper's, a leasing pool's, or one the broker sourced. FreightWaves described the move simply: a truck arrives at a shipper's facility, finds a preloaded trailer, picks it up and drives away without waiting for a dock appointment.

Not every shipper is a candidate. The same FreightWaves reporting found that shippers with high volumes and high freight velocity, meaning a sustained, regular cadence of loads with cut times close together, benefit most from drop solutions, while producers of industrial goods like metals and raw materials are less suited. The catch for the broker is operational: separating the trailer from the tractor makes tracking, matching, and routing more complex, and somebody has to know how many trailers a facility needs and where every one of them is.

For prospecting, the dock model is one of the best discovery questions you can ask, because it tells you what capacity the shipper needs and where its current provider is falling short. A high-volume CPG plant or beverage distributor running live loads with long dwell has a detention problem you can name. A shipper already running a drop program with an asset carrier is hard to displace on price, but may need overflow power-only capacity in peak season. A small manufacturer shipping three loads a week from one dock door is a live-load account, and promising that shipper a trailer pool is overselling. If the answer is a live-load account with steady weekly volume, it is also the natural place to offer a first trial load on one lane rather than pitching the whole network.

The spot board is efficient for what it is: a clearing house for backhauls, one-offs, and companies without an established carrier base. Living on the board is a margin killer, which every broker knows and does anyway because the alternative — finding and landing direct shippers — is hard. It's repetitive, it takes longer, and most of it ends in no.

The thing is, direct freight is the only thing that compounds. Every load you move well off the board for a shipper is an introduction to their regular freight. A distributor who posts a one-off on DAT occasionally has regular freight they're covering through a carrier they already know. That carrier got the relationship because they showed up, delivered the one-off cleanly, and then asked to be the backup on steady lanes.

The first move is to identify the right shippers by vertical and geography. CPG manufacturers in your region, retail distributors feeding stores you can reach, paper mills on lanes you run well. Find the named decision-maker — transportation manager, logistics coordinator, supply chain planner, whoever tenders loads — and research them enough to say something specific in an email. Not 'we move dry van nationwide,' but 'I see you're running regional distribution to [region] and I've got capacity on that lane every week.'

Then follow up. Most brokers send one cold email, get silence, and assume dry van is unsellable. Direct shippers don't reply on touch one. They reply on touch three or four, or more honestly, they reply when their current carrier fails to cover a load during a busy period, and at that moment they remember the broker who kept emailing them. The ones who build a book are the ones who stay in front, professionally and on topic, for months, because that's when timing and the shipper's actual need align. Our guide on freight broker prospecting walks through that outreach cadence in detail.

Everything above is doable by hand. The problem is doing it consistently across dozens of dry van prospects in several verticals while you're also covering loads, confirming appointments, and chasing detention approvals. That's the gap GotFreight is built to close for a dry van broker or asset carrier.

GotFreight prospects shippers that match the lanes and equipment you actually run, such as CPG manufacturers, retail distributors, and paper and plastics shippers in the regions you cover, and verifies the decision-maker before anyone gets an email. It writes personalized cold email specific to each shipper's freight and sends it from your own inbox and domain, so it reads like you and your sending reputation stays yours.

It runs the follow-up cadence automatically, so a prospect doesn't fall off because you got buried in a busy week, and it triages replies so the shippers who answer with a lane or a question reach you first. Load-to-Lead works from paperwork you already have: the named shipper and consignee on a bill of lading become verified leads, and nearby companies on the lane are surfaced for your review only. The document is read once and discarded, and rates and dates are never extracted.

Leads move through a freight-native pipeline, Target through Trial Load to Won, instead of living in an inbox and a spreadsheet. The trial is 350 credits with no card required, and paid credits roll over for 60 days. Our comparison of an AI sales rep versus hiring an SDR walks through the cost side.