Article: Local Couriers
Small local couriers come into their own for immediate deliveries within few blocks or miles I hey are (or should be) appreciably cheaper than the premium same-day services of the big express operators. Also, the locals should be faster, since they kiiow the area and can collect and deliver in one sweep rather than scheduling your consignment among a round of consolidated activities.
Their telephone numbers ire in be found by the score in Yellow Pages. The drawback is that these entries do not indicate which are one-person enterprises, where having two or three jobs in hand can put your urgent despatch at the bottom of a waiting list, and they do not give an assurance of reliability
So it’s probably a case of trial-and-error until you find that local carrier who is always responsive, who has sufficient drivers and vehicles to minimise the chance of delay and who has the ability to provide proof of delivery if required. Fred-down-the-road with his one van or motor-bike may be cheap, cheerful and convenient, but is that scribble on a grimy scrap of paper really proof of delivery? And what happens when his vehicle breaks down?
If you have fairly frequent local work, once you have found the firm that suits you, it’s worth offering it preferred supplier status. Regular work will cement relationships, gain prionty treatment and enable discounts to be negotiated.
The benefits of local operators, while they may claim to he able and willing to go further afield, decrease with distance. Their relatively low costs for operating within immediate areas will most probably rise steeply, like a metered taxi, for longer
ourneys. There comes a point where the national carriers can match and then better the prices of the locals by consolidating consignments on trunk routes and deplovi rig economies of scale
Alongside this, they have the systems in place for all the ancillary services that may be required continuous tracking. virtually instantaneous electronic confirmation of deli very, dealing with returns, insurance cover. trouble-s i oot i ng, etc.
‘Tom Bell, Managing Director of TNT UK and Ireland, contends: 'For too long the UK express delivery market has suffered fro the price wars generated by over-capacity, with service quality all too often tilling victim to brutal cost-cutting exercises. Numerous parcel companies over the years have reached a turnover of £100 million in the UK and then vanished from the map because the haven’t charged customers a high enough rate to enable them to train their people or to maintain and expand their networks’.
At Business Express, Marketing Mn lager Bill Wallis makes the point: ‘Costs of purely locally based services can escalate rapidly once you go beyond their immediate areas. Also, a regional or local service may sub-contract the longer journeys to other companies and you don’t have an end-to-end tracking or proof-of-delivery service’.
However, he concedes that the locals can have advantages when it comes to in-town deliveries. ‘Most local courier companies specialise in same-day delivery: they pick up and deliver without going through another depot or hub’, he says. Nevertheless, there are intermediate-size regional carriers that provide a fair compromise between the sophisticated logistics and systems of the giants and the rudimentary provisions of the locals.
Then there are carriers which operate daily services at set times from their home towns to major cities. Another option is Track Express, employing city-to-city rail services with collecuon and delivery at either end. Or the best buy for appropriate types of traffic might be Hays DX, with some 4000 document exchange centres throughout the UK.
With so many options available, companies’ needs are best met when they have despatch managers with the skill and experience to find the right horses for the right courses. [SCANNED]
