Help getting more courier / distribution work etc

[dthomas31uk]

Hi. I have my own long wheel based van based in Staffordshire and wanted some tips on how I can get regular work. ie courier services, distribution, office removals, small house removals etc. Can anyone advise me on how I can get the work? What do you recommend me to do to get more regular work? Are there any good sites out there that offer business leads etc for courier work, etc? Have seen a few business lead sites out there but they want money up front to do this. Are there any trusted, reliable sites that you guys out there know about?

Cheers guys. Hope someone can advise.

 

[J Walker]

Hi, we are in the same boat as you, we have just started our owm courier business, but we worked for Parcelforce before this so have quite a lot of contacts. We joined the freight alerts website, they have a lot of regular work on there and a lot of customers selling and buying items off ebay, but be warned they don't like paying a lot of money to deliver or collect items, but can be used as backloads as we have done to cut down on dead mileage. You can also post your empty vehicle details on the site. The fee for this is £50+vat. During the next month, we are joining courier exchange. They are expensive but have absolutely tons of work, and they send it through your mobile wherever you are and they pay a bit more as it's mostly urgent deliveries that need to be there the same day. The cost of this is £306+vat for 6 months, but the manager was telling me yesterday that most of the courieres are earning between £3000 and £4000 a month. Go to courier exchange.co.uk, but they only recruit every 3 months, but it's worth finding out. Hope this helps. All the best, Janice.

 

[An Oasis]

Interesting first posts Janice!!!!

 

[barringtonfreight]

A guy I know gets lots of work from courier exchange. The rates are often low though so he mainly uses it for back loads.

Here are a few ideas -

* Make sure that your van is sign written with your contact numbers. (it is a very big moving advert)

* Get a small website - even one page would be better than none at all.

* Submit your company to Yell.com but use your domain name instead of your company name.

* Get some postcards printed with details of your services, post them to local freight forwarders, go to local business parks and trading estates and post thru doors.

* Submit a press release to the local paper with an interesting news story and a picture of you next to your van.

* Write a letter to your local newspapers about say "fuel costs and how it affects your business", make sure to sign it off with your domain name & company name.

* You could work as a sub-contractor for DHL / TNT or any of those, they all use owner drivers occasionally.

Hope this helps

Matt

 

[MH1]

how I can get regular work. ie courier services, distribution, office removals, small house removals etc. Can anyone advise me on how I can get the work?

Had to stop last year due to ill health, but I specialised in small removals topped up with ebay courier work. I used a combination of website, ebay, local advertising andadwords. If you need a website contact me for a ready made one

Ref Ebayers, trust me, they will pay just as much as anyone else if offerred the right service, a very good source of income, I ran a hi top merc sprinter and basically charged £50 per hour.

Do a good job and you get a lot of repeat business, and removals and ebayers are all cash jobs, where back loads are normally on account for diesel only.

Before joining any of the exchanges, I would recommend you take a look at them and see if the work suits what you are after, plenty of couriers run at a loss, not the brightest bunch of guys in the world.

Most important thing is to network and get testimonials, most of my clients had decided to use my service before even being quoted due to being let down so often by other people.

 

[GreatSEO]

I know a lot of couriers that use www.boxby.co.uk and it is totally free.

The site is generating quite a few jobs and I am sure others will back me up here that the site is definately one of the better ones.

However I think the site is in development teething and should be back online next week so one for you all to save unless of course you are all registered on it already

Cheers

Dave

 

[FreelanceSEO]

Hi, we are in the same boat as you, we have just started our owm courier business, but we worked for Parcelforce before this so have quite a lot of contacts. We joined the freight alerts website, they have a lot of regular work on there and a lot of customers selling and buying items off ebay, but be warned they don't like paying a lot of money to deliver or collect items, but can be used as backloads as we have done to cut down on dead mileage. You can also post your empty vehicle details on the site. The fee for this is £50+vat. During the next month, we are joining courier exchange. They are expensive but have absolutely tons of work, and they send it through your mobile wherever you are and they pay a bit more as it's mostly urgent deliveries that need to be there the same day. The cost of this is £306+vat for 6 months, but the manager was telling me yesterday that most of the courieres are earning between £3000 and £4000 a month. Go to courier exchange.co.uk, but they only recruit every 3 months, but it's worth finding out. Hope this helps. All the best, Janice.

Please don't believe all you hear regarding CX. Good for making new contacts and backloads but you'll never make a living from it. I know I have access to the site. Those figures (£3-4k) are ridiculous.

 

[Matt1959]

Gumtree will bring in enquiries from people wanting budget jobs eg students etc. Its free to advertise and you can keep your ad top of the listing every 7 days by simply clicking on an automated reminder sent by Gumtree to your email inbox.

 

[Calibre Designs]

- www.boxby.co.uk -

However I think the site is in development teething and should be back online next week so one for you all to save unless of course you are all registered on it already

Dave

Yes, currently offline due to redesign and development. We are redesigning the front end graphics for the company's website.

 

[antonranton]

Hi. There are free exchanges which do not charge anything to have access to the work , like findmycourier.com for example. They only take a small fee when you get the work.

 

[smecouriers]

hey you dont want to be paying anything to any of the sites like the cx and mtvan etc. cos theres not enough work to go around and the members are clicky and expect u to run backloads at 15 to 20p per mile.

here are some sites for you to look at.
codforum.org its free and an informative forum you'll find out all u need to know on there im a member
trades4work.com this is the one that will take over soon. sends texts emails etc free advertising im a member
shed 5 its only about a tenner to join sends texts email alerts etc i used to be a member

ive also been a member of the cx mtvan and gtmuk but there rates are to high an im not going back.

as someone said above cx only recruit every 3 month your mistaken you can only join for 3 month at a time & its costly

now is not the time to be coming into this industry its dead

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I used to love driving a van around eating crap and listening to the radio.

There is only one way to survive in this game these days and thats be a full time sales person .Its very very tough ..I spend my whole week generating business and running things

The problem is that there are more empty vehicles than there are loads. There are better businesses to start up than this .If I was starting a business now this would be the very last thing I would do..Hey but we are here now so we just get up each morning have our weatabix and do it all over again

 

[Willself]

HEHEHEHE JEREMY!! HOPE THATS THE BIG 3!! LOL

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

No Will just 2

If I had a curry the night before maybe only one and half !

 

[smecouriers]

i thought this forum would have had a few people looking for couriers but for the ammount of members it has theres not many people posting much on here are there any other forums for businesses that anyone knows of

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

i thought this forum would have had a few people looking for couriers but for the ammount of members it has theres not many people posting much on here are there any other forums for businesses that anyone knows of

Most of the members on here are sending out next day parcels with the overnight companies and that reflects most companies in the UK now.!
I think this is something that most smaller couriers tend to struggle to understand.Nobody wants to pay £200 to send a box from Manchester to London they would like to pay £6.90.Like anything a market is driven by customer demand and not a suppliers need to earn a living

To be fair though I do get a small amount of enquiries from people here.You cant complain for thirty quid !!!

 

[MH1]

Agree with Jeremy Hawke, the courier industry is in decline at the moment due too many factors, not a good time to be in it to be fair, hundreds of new starters each year too replace the hundreds of business failures from previous years.

 

[Willself]

HEHEHE!! I wonder if i offer customers!FREE HOLIDAYS!! LOL

Would i win all New Business!!

 

[one couriers]

3-4k a month on Courier Exchange??...O,Ive just woke up,time for my cornflakes !! And they only recruit every 3 months...what a load of cr*p !
That is the most expensive website to join,and half of them buggers dont pay !

 

[smecouriers]

the cx will let anyone join and you have to join for a minimum of 3 month the reason they keep going is this, a newbie comes along and sees all these jobs being posted on their site but these are not real jobs they are from their members using the cx booking system of course a lot of other jobs get put on there but they want you to do them for pennys an if your lucky enough to get a good job off there you mite not get paid

 

[one couriers]

Very very true SME

 

[scribe]

Just a very small point .This thread was started in 2008.

 

[stickyadvertising]

theres a few good sites out there shiply.com is a good one. theres about 100,000 jobs on there from removels, courier work and all you do is place a price on the job and wait till they accept, you can do as many as you want.

type in google bid free on courier jobs

 

[smecouriers]

shiply its all ebay stuff people wanting a piano moving from glasgow to london for a fiver

 

[one couriers]

What idiot would use Shipley or Boxby??....Answer,a total idiot....O yea Mr&Mrs Jones I will move your £1000 Ebay item from here to there (300 miles) for £20 !!...These sites in my view should be banned..Why as loads of stuff go missing FACT,I have heard so so many horror stories from a certain company that OVER 70% YES 70% goes astray...Lesson,dont use Boxby or any other cheap "I will get it there for a fiver" sites !!
These views are mine,and not of my or any other company

 

[jazzie]

elo my name is jazzie l have just started my own courier business and l need help ,l need a website can any one help me pls.

 

[Richard Williams]

ive also been a member of the cx mtvan and gtmuk but there rates are to high an im not going back.

Hi I'm new here and am the developer behind mtvan.com.

I realise this is an old thread, but just wanted to correct this post as the vast majority of mtvan is completely free. All the networking features and directory listings are free, as is posting excess work and using the forum. We have well over 1000's members from the courier and logistics industry so it's well worth getting stuck in to pick up new contacts at the very least.

 

[Mike George]

the cx will let anyone join and you have to join for a minimum of 3 month the reason they keep going is this, a newbie comes along and sees all these jobs being posted on their site but these are not real jobs they are from their members using the cx booking system

I keep trying to tell people that but they don't believe it (or don't want to believe it)

And mtvan encourages its members to take work off Shiply etc and re-post it on mtvan to make it look busier

 

[wug1229]

Not much activity due to past 5 years. I believe business is pretty good and not much time to share couple words here.

Anyway, just join this business recently and like any begining business , is not that great. I am not complaining so far but i can use some advise from more experience people than me.

Cheers!