South Africa’s freight and logistics industry runs substantial volumes of empty truck capacity, operates through fragmented relationships rather than transparent marketplaces, and remains protective of established arrangements, a combination that makes it inefficient and therefore genuinely open to businesses that can improve how capacity is matched to demand.
Fragmentation and protectiveness are usually described as barriers, and they are, but they are also precisely the conditions that leave value available to a business willing to work through them.
Empty running is the inefficiency at the centre of the problem
Trucks returning empty after a delivery represent capacity that has already been paid for and produces no revenue, and any system that matches that spare capacity to freight needing to move in the same direction creates value for both the transporter and the customer.
Fragmentation prevents the market from clearing efficiently
Freight is largely arranged through established bilateral relationships rather than a transparent marketplace, which means available capacity and available loads frequently fail to find each other despite both existing, a coordination failure rather than a capacity shortage.
Industry protectiveness slows adoption but does not prevent it
Established operators are frequently reluctant to move business onto a platform that increases price transparency, which slows adoption considerably, though operators facing genuine empty-running costs have a direct financial incentive that eventually outweighs the reluctance.
Trust and verification are the platform’s real product
A transporter accepting a load from an unfamiliar customer, or a customer entrusting goods to an unfamiliar transporter, needs assurance about payment, insurance and reliability, which means the verification and guarantee layer is what a logistics platform genuinely sells rather than the matching itself.
The freight and transport volumes that make this sector attractive are tracked in the industry statistics published by Statistics South Africa.
Frequently asked questions
What makes South Africa’s logistics industry inefficient?
Substantial empty truck running, fragmented bilateral arrangements rather than transparent marketplaces, and protectiveness of established relationships, which together prevent capacity and demand from matching efficiently.
Why does empty running matter commercially?
Because it represents capacity already paid for that generates no revenue, so matching it to freight moving in the same direction creates genuine value for transporter and customer simultaneously.
Is fragmentation a barrier or an opportunity?
Both. It makes entry harder, but it is also the coordination failure that leaves value available, since loads and capacity frequently fail to find each other despite both existing.
Why are established operators reluctant to adopt platforms?
Largely because platforms increase price transparency, which threatens margins built on information asymmetry, though the direct cost of empty running eventually outweighs that reluctance for many operators.
What does a logistics platform actually sell?
Trust and verification. The matching is straightforward; assuring payment, insurance and reliability between parties who do not know each other is the harder and more valuable part.
Further reading
Originally published in October 2017. Updated September 2026 and rewritten in house voice, drawing the original founder’s view into the structural economics of logistics inefficiency.
