The couriers relationship with the internet

The day to day use of the internet within the transport and especially the courier industry cannot be underestimated. In many ways it has enabled smaller courier businesses to establish themselves within the market and compete against larger national courier businesses with the use of online directories & their own websites through search engine results. Many smaller local couriers will undoubtedly provide a higher level of service to their customers than the national companies as it is quite obviously in their interests to do so, more than say the list of self employed sub contractors (known as core drivers) that the national companies use.

      The Internet has enabled many smaller sameday couriers to network and converse with other similar couriers around the country in the use of forums It has also created a market for transport exchanges to evolve, these are usually trade only exchanges where sameday couriers can network, help and gain assistance in the form of covering sameday courier jobs when they have no one to cover them. This on the face of it seems an ideal avenue for a sameday courier to go down in order to grow their business, however more and more these exchanges are being taken over by a handful of sameday companies (who herein we will refer to as EB or empire builders) who have decided they want to be "your local sameday courier" in every town in the country. Firstly they start with building a website they will appear on every search engine for Courier in your town, they will seem at first a very attractive option for the customers in your area because they will be quoting around 10-15% less than the market average. The market average will be what the smaller couriers businesses based in your area will be quoting based on cost plus reasonable profit, this all seems very good for the customer free market and all that, however as these EB's are based possibly hundreds of miles away they will now need to "sell" your courier requirements on the trade exchange in order to cover it. Once posted on this exchange the EB will receive quotes by email, text & telephone from self employed couriers to cover this work, and a bidding process begins sometimes down to the level where it becomes uneconomical for the self employed courier to do the work on a stand alone basis, so how will the courier be able to complete this I hear you ask? Well the courier may be returning back to base in that direction anyway so can afford to bid low, or the courier may already have another job going in that general direction which is when the price you paid becomes less attractive as this wasn't the dedicated service you paid for. Some of the members of an exchange site will intentionally bid low (and even below fuel/running costs) in order to "turn the wheels" on a quiet day in the hoping that they will get something coming back to base. This is a very dangerous game to play as they is no guarantee of a return load and even if you do get one another EB will be aware you are returning home and expect another low price. 

With the increase of redundancies there have been more and more new couriers entering the market and in many cases signing up considerable sums of money to these exchanges in the hope of being captains of their own destiny, many of these new start ups will see other couriers working the exchanges to death by co loading and decide this is the way to go, this often results in bad decisions to move items hundreds of miles for a price that wouldn't cover fuel let alone pay themselves a wage. Sometimes bad co loading decisions will result in delays way past expected eta times because their first drop happened to be out when they called, being a member of a courier forum I have heard of the stories of exchange couriers turning up 4 hours late for an eta with no explanation as to why. 

            I knew a motorbike courier who once told me he took a job from one exchange site, Milton Keynes to Aberdeen that was described as a screamer (very urgent). He said he completed in just over 7 hours (a journey google maps estimates would take 8 hours 45 mins) "but I had to go as low as 50p per loaded mile to get it!" he said, an absolutely crazy sub contractor rate which would have netted him about £90 after fuel but before other associated costs (Maintenance costs for 1,000 miles, Tyres, 2 days insurance cost, coffee's etc) for what was essentially a two day return trip (even if you do manage it in one day, you will need the next day off to rest), he was lucky as he knew someone in Glasgow and stayed over, the expense of a hotel would have almost wiped his profit out, needless to say this biker is no longer working as a courier.

             It may even be the case that the EB has never met or had any commercial contact with the sub 

Stock photograph often used

contractor they use but their price was the lowest, essentially using a stranger who happens to be a member of the same exchange. The EB will sometimes have no idea as to the ability of this sub contractor and errors and delays will often occur because of this. These type of Empire builders are quite easily spotted from their websites, they will have non geographic telephone number ie 0845 (but not always the case), their exact location isn't easily obtainable, they boast 2,500 vehicles at their beckon call (a dead giveaway) and their website pictures tend to be stock vehicle photos or stock photos of couriers handing packages over. Some of these exchange sites & EB's survive on the naivety & constant turnover of these redundancy couriers all in the guise of free market forces.

If you need to use a urgent sameday courier use a local one, service levels will be substantially higher than one with an office a hundred miles away, they will be more accountable and keen to build lasting commercial relationships. An experience courier will still have a network of similar sameday couriers around the country that they can call upon for short notice collections a hundred miles away but these will be with couriers that they know well and sometimes built relationships over several years. Your local sameday courier with some notice will still be able to travel to that collection on the other side of the country for you.

Into the Capital

Got a call yesterday from a London based company requiring the returning of a just one stand to their associates in Milton Keynes, after a few city based courier quotes, their associates suggested they try us as although based in Milton Keynes we are regularly in London as the job could be carried out be either a London or an MK based courier, they were pleasantly surprised when they saved 30% over a London based courier and the job was completed this morning entirely to schedule.

MK Bikes have Small vans as well as Motorcycles

In a general conversation with a relatively new customer who's been using us about 6 months he said "What do you do in the winter?"
"We put more clothes on" I replied, no it wasn't what he meant and I fully understood him but essentially that is what we do, an all year round motorcyclist is exactly that, there are still many bikers that ride all year round usually commuters & of course Motorcycle couriers. Modern waterproof & windproof fabrics such as Goretex and little extra's added to the motorbike such as wind deflectors, heated grips and/or handlebar muffs will aid the motorbike courier to endure most usual British winters. Additional layers make all the difference, clothing bought from hiking stores is always a favorite and at least two pairs of gloves (a spare if the first get so wet) with Cold Killer glove inserts indescribably important.

We had another call this morning from a Bedford based company who required some paperwork taking to Manchester before close of business, however the customer at this point wasn't sure when this paperwork would be ready to send, after advising him that the journey time on a Motorbike would be about 2 and a half hours and the collection time could be as late as 2.30pm, he gave us a call back at midday to say the paperwork was ready and the Motorbike was en route to Manchester within 30 minutes and comfortably delivered just after 3pm.

I should have seen it coming

I didnt notice it was the last day of the quarter, always a favorite for deliveries to companies house. Customer informed us it had to be there for 5pm as they close but it may not be ready til quite late, now Companies House London has recently moved to a building behind Victoria Street in SW1 but previously at their old building they allowed submissions to be posted through their letterbox after the office closes at 5pm and right up until midnight after which the post is cleared and all further post is then considered delivered on the next working day Monday.
On our first trip to Companies House we established that the after hours posting is also the case at the new building, and also learnt that the Cardiff office is open tomorrow and submission would still be in time at this office, our customer was very relieved and has now booked a a bike to take documnets to Cardiff tomorrow so a small amount of work on our part has rewarded us with another booked job on a Saturday!

The first call of the day saw one of our motorbike couriers heading up to Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire for some urgent  personal property to go to Yorkshire, an excellent response time was achieved and the biker was quickly en route for Sheffield despite the poor weather he was there and delivered in 90 minutes from collection, customer was very pleased and has now requested to open a 30 day account. Another bike was pre booked yesterday so was already on the road heading to a Lawyers in Mayfair the heart of London's west end, once delivered the biker headed over to Victoria for a visa collection for another of our customers.
The returning bike from Sheffield called into Northampton on the way back to complete one of our long standing regular non cash banking runs which heads into Milton Keynes, conviently slotting in our very short run into the middle of that.


The Van was also busy today with deliveries into London and a collection of the exhibition boards we took down last night, unfortunately the collection time of 4pm on a Friday places the van on one of the major exit routes the A41 from London in rush hour, after taking nearly an hour to reach the bottom of the M1 the rest of the journey back to Milton Keynes was relatively jam free and rolling along at a constant speed and the boards were delieverd into our customers premises  just 2 hours after collection on a Friday evening.

Glad I wasnt at the back of the queue

The rain mostly managed to hold off today and the small courier van headed off for a delivery down to Hammersmith in London, despite being on four wheels this should have been easily achievable within 90 minutes during the day, that is before the elderly driver decided to jack knife his caravan just north of Junct 12 on the M1, luckily he didnt appear to be hurt and we were fortunate enough to only be withina half mile of the front of it and quickly back on schedule. Various jobs throughout the day from regular customers keep our courier bikes busy with only one very urgent rush to a property agent in Essex. As many of our exsisting customers are confident of our high levels of service they have taken to requesting larger vehicles such as Mercedes Sprinters that we dont normally use, as we have a select group of couriers that we work closely with, we are able after a few phone calls to provide this type of vehicle, one of which headed of down to a London Hotel this evening with exhibition boards for an AGM.

We often get enquiries from people requiring their new motorcycle collected from the point of purchase to its new home and today was no different. This is something that should only be undertaken by specialist Motorcycle movers not least for the reasons of insurance cover, standard goods in transit insurance does not cover the movement of vehicles. Many general couriers do often get involved in this sort of work indifferent to this fact nor informing their customers of this.
It is common for people to post their motorcycle movement requirements on certain sites which encourage service providers to enter ever decreasing bids to cover this work, this gets into dangerous territory as when the bidding becomes uneconmically viable to deliver your motorcycle, these providers with the lowest bids then have to scour these sites to fit other items into the run, essentially the lower the bid the longer you can expect it to take your motorcycle to get to you, with many motorcycles costing thousands of pounds it seems foolhardy you would allow someone with little or no experience (& possibly insurance) of handling motorcycles.

 These are the reasons why we would recommend using specialist motorcycle transportation one such transporter is Alpact Couriers, we would highly recommend anyone requiring this service to visit Here for more information.

A quiet wet mid week day

It's been fairly quiet day today at MK BIKES, a late afternoon collection in London yesterday of a van full of boxes bound for a large department stores Milton Keynes distribution centre meant the small Vauxhall Combo van was poised at the gates at 8.30am for the pre arranged booking slot. We were told by the customer that not keeping to this delivery slot would mean the distribution centre would impose a £500 "fine"!!
Surely not? With the way that vehicle journey times can change so quickly in the blink of an eye it seems a little unfair to be penalised to the tune of such an outrageous amount, I suppose that's the power these large companies have over their suppliers, and an essential reason to use a reliable sameday courier.
The motorway users on the M1 late this afternoon are all too aware of how journey times can change so quickly, yet again between the Northampton Junctions of 16-17 heading north bound a multi vehicle collision occurred this time involving 6 vehicles. All 3 lanes of the motorway were closed between Junct 16 to 18, it returned to normal conditions some time around 9pm.
The first motorbike courier job of the day is requested by a new customer who requires legal documents rushed up to a solicitors in Birmingham, despite the collection being almost 20 miles from base our motorbike gets there in under 25 minutes and heads straight up to the destination, the customer is very pleasantly surprised at the speed of delivery when I call to give the proof of delivery (POD) which is the name of the signatory and the time at which it was received.
A supplier to several the F1 racing teams keeps us busy with regular drops several times a week to teams based in the South East, today was no exception with the van heading out with a wait & return job that required goods also heading back to the supplier, then another item heads off by motorcycle courier to do battle with the mid afternoon M25 traffic, two wheels make light work of such busyness (yes it is a real word!) on the outer London Motorway ring road to arrive at the destination in a leafy Surrey suburb.

Slotted nicely in the early afternoon is our daily collection which travels a grand total of 1 mile each day, a run that we have completed on behalf of our customer for the past 6 years.
 We have had several enquiry's today whether that has anything to do when the resurrection of our Google ad-words campaign will remain to be seen, and also a call for a potential customer from yesterday who didn't need a courier in the end but called to thank us for "being there" if she had needed us.

We understand that an urgent same day courier is expensive by comparison to the low cost carriers but these two services are miles apart in terms of service, the term "overnight" is a misleading term as you would be forgiven that it is going to arrive the very next day, many people find to their cost that when it goes wrong with a low cost carrier that mostly delivers the next day it usually goes very wrong with items sometimes missing for days, it is only then that most people find out that these low cost carriers have conditions in their terms & conditions that mean they do not consider the item late until it takes more than  72 hours! Thats a whole 3 days from collection not very helpful when the part needed to be there the very next day. Some of these carriers even have the cheek to add "24" to their name, this doesn't necessarily mean hours in fact it could mean the number of chasing phone calls you will need to make if something goes wrong! Twitter is full of unhappy low cost overnight customers, quite a good way to formulate a decision on whether to use same day or overnight is by searching tweets for them.

Welcome

Hi, decided to begin this blog to document all the trials & tribulations of running a small courier business based in Milton Keynes UK.
Some back ground I suppose I started in the Courier game some 13 years ago in 1999, running around working for TNT, DHL & RICO to name just a couple of the "Big Boys" and a combination of numerous smaller courier companies & courier acquaintances,  with MK BIKES emerging in the summer of 2006. Later that year in late October whilst riding down Vandyke road in Leighton Buzzard heading in the direction of Sheffield with a job on, I managed to collide with a quarry lorry, I was fortunate to just receive a glancing blow to the offside of the bike,unfortunately thats where my foot used to reside whilst on the bike. The aftermath resulted in a trip to Milton Keynes General where I learnt the very next day that the chances of being able to keep my right foot was very silm, however they persevered and after a week of debridement  procedures every other day and a trip to Stoke Mandeville Hospital it became clear that there wasnt any hope and just 3 days later I had the operation to remove my right foot & leg below the knee (as foot amputations are not a common thing these days and a better prognosis is achieved with a below knee amputation). As you can guess this was a devastating blow not least because Alison & I had two small children Campbell nearly 4 and Kenzie nearly 2, not to mention Alan 18, Alison's disabled son from her first marriage.
I spent in total just over a month in hospital and when discharged quickly went to work on the job of selling our house we had only bought almost 4 years earlier due to the financial uncertainty of the situation. The house quickly sold and I continued to run MK BIKES by using 2 biker sub contractors. We moved just a short distance away from the old house and I managed to get fitted with a prosthetic leg some 10 weeks after the amputation, after initial struggles with fitting and tenderness I quickly got used to the prosthesis and even manage to jump back on a motorbike after 20 weeks and managed to do my first courier job almost 6 months to the day after the amputation.

With that back ground it kinda brings the story to very much the point I am at today, still running the courier business with two main biker sub contractors (albeit different ones and a few others in the process) and jumping on my bike or in the small van when the situation requires it, a host of other local sub contractors and several small courier business owners that I work closely with.