Relay Express growing tall on leftovers from shipping giants
In the world of shipping, UPS, FedEx and DHL stand tall as giants. Yet for all their trucks and planes running at all hours of the day and night, missed shipments happen.
That’s where companies such as Relay Express step in. The Cincinnatibased courier service has made a living in part by delivering those extra packages while specializing in on-demand and scheduled deliveries within cities.
Relay Express entered the Columbus market in January to perform those services in the central Ohio area, and has plans to expand. The courier’s efforts to sell its first franchises have cleared their last hurdle.
“At the start of July, everything was finalized to move forward,” said Chief Executive Bob Smith, a Relay Express founder. “Actually, (the response) has been a little overwhelming, but it’s a very positive sign that a lot of people are interested in us.”
Relay Express, which turned 20 in February, had been considering Columbus as an option for expansion in the past five years, Smith said. Now that the company is here, with 15 drivers operating from a Groveport warehouse, Smith said, he likes the demand for services so far.
“It seems like it’s really taking off, and the growth is going to be pretty phenomenal,” Smith said.
The company also is looking to franchise the concept. Initially, Relay Express will stick to regions around its Cincinnati home as it wades into franchising, said Mark Siebert, a consultant at the iFranchise Group who worked with the courier company.
“The thing about this industry is, right now, it’s wide open as far as franchising is concerned,” Siebert said. “They’re looking to pursue markets that are relatively close to home, because that allows them to more readily service those markets.
“They have hundreds of options nationwide,” he said.
The idea of franchising courier services is still a “fairly unique” concept to the industry, said Bob DeCaprio, executive director of the Messenger Courier Association of the Americas, based in Washington.
“It’s intriguing as a way to expand and increase your footprint,” he said.
The Columbus market has featured competing courier services long before Relay Express came to town. American Expediting Co., which bills itself as a “rush and same-day courier service,” moved from Whitehall this month to a larger warehousing site in Hilliard to accommodate increased demand.
Among the competition, Relay Express should be an attractive franchising option, Smith said, because the courier does a lot of work for companies with offices in multiple cities. In other words, national companies that need regional help.
“As opposed to just giving them all of our systems and processes and saying, ‘Go after it,’ we can kind of give them certain business that we’ve already acquired,” Smith said.
And that “puts you a couple of rungs up the ladder to start out of the gate,” DeCaprio said.
He praised Relay Express’ recent moves to franchise and get involved in warehousing and logistics work. “You flip open the Yellow Pages and you’ll see 20 different courier services in” Columbus, he said. “I suspect Relay Express is in the top two.”
