Setting up a newspaper delivery service at age 16

[Hope GRAY]

I am 16 years old and trying to set up my own newspaper delivery service. However I am 16 years old and trying to set up my own newspaper delivery service. HoweverIt is a lot more difficult than I first thought. I am wondering about the issues with Charles employment and how and what it means to be registered to the local authority and apparently you have to agree a contract with each person employed but I don’t know what kind of template I would need to use and what needs to be in a contract. I’m wondering about the suppliers whether I should use a whole it is a lot more difficult than I first thought. I am wondering about the issues with Charles employment and how and what it means to be registered to the local authority and apparently you have to agree a contract with each person employed but I don’t know what kind of template I would need to use and what needs to be in a contract. I’m wondering about the suppliers whether I should use a whole saler And how much they would cost as I’m obviously not able to drive to the supermarket and collect the papers. I’m planning on running the business from my garage are there any requirements that they ne and how much they would cost as I’m obviously not able to drive to the supermarket and collect the papers. I’m planning on running the business from my garage are there any requirements that the Garage must have in order to store the newspapers and allow the deliveries to come in and collect the papers, willI need planning permission? I’m also wondering about howI charge the customers and how frequently. Do they send the money to my personal bank account or I charge the customers and how frequently. Do they send the money to my personal bank account or Do they give the cash upfront and come to my house? Do they give the cash upfront and come to my house? I’m also wondering how I can find what the costs of the paper theirselves are and how much I should charge for delivery. I’m also wondering what kind of permits I need to get, such as employment permits and employers liability as well as insurance.

 

[Mr D]

My local newsagent gets the papers delivered as several big bundles. His job is then to sort out the papers and put each round in order, for the local delivery kids to deliver.

Buying wholesale, not from supermarket (unless they are willing to sell wholesale to you).

No planning permission as such though neighbours can complain about noise and visitors.

From my experience delivering papers many years ago for a newsagent (33 years ago) the payment from the customers was made in arrears - often 2 or 3 weeks at a time - and the delivery kids were paid weekly.

How you receive payment is up to you. If you got 11 payments all the same amount on one day can you figure which of the 20 people owing that amount - or any others - the payments are for?
Need to figure out payment processes.

Would expect your supplier to require you to pay up front.

 

[Alison Moore]

It's great that you've got the dedication to look into this and give this a go. As Mr D says most newsagents have their newspapers delivered daily, which they then sort out into piles for the newspapers lads and laddettes to deliver. I know our local newspaper is delivered to our newsagent in a different van to the nationals, so first I'd say that you'd need to look at where they're getting their newspapers from and see if you can buy direct from them. It might be that the newspaper wholesaler will only sell to newsagents/shops etc so that might be a no go to start with. Also I'd be reluctant to look at taking on staff to do this, as there are a lot of overheads associated with staff which I would doubt that you could cover from the profit made delivering newspapers. Good luck with it!

 

[ExoPaul]

I was brought up in a newsagent my parents owned. The realities are that newspaper sales are dying, and moving online.
Most newsagents have given up using delivery services and instead just sell a few in-store.

Buying a newspaper from a supermarket and trying to sell it on sounds pointless to me, it has the price on the paper and your local supermarket will only stock about 5-20 of each newspaper. You can't sell them at a profit if a 55p newspaper costs you 55p in a supermarket and you have to sell it at 55p. You can therefore only make a profit from delivery charges if you pay full RRP for the paper, but then you have to pay whoever delivers them. And delivery charges are about 10p per newspaper and most of that if not all of that goes to whoever delivers it.

You would have to purchase from a supplier but they will probably have minimum orders so you might only be considered by them if you order at least 30+ papers/day. And they will not deal with anyone under 18 so you will need a parent to take on the agreement because they (used to when we did it) set up a contract with you and deliver the papers to your business.

Also, you cannot deliver newspapers to people late in the afternoon or evening, most people want their newspaper for taking to work with them. So you are going to have to get up early every morning, 7 days a week, without a single day off except on Xmas Day, to prepare the newspapers for delivery. If you decide to have a weekend off you lose your customers who want the weekend papers and they won't pay for you to take time off or come back again when you are ready to start doing weekends again.

You also need to invoice the customers, or take payments up front. That will cost money as you will need to write invoices for payment to be sent with their paper each week/month or have an easy option for them to pay you for X amount of papers up front. These costs will come out of your profits too.

You are talking about getting up at 6am in the morning, to have papers ready for kids to deliver an hour before a school bus/school starts, 7 days a week, also delivering yourself when a kid lets you down. £1-£2/day, minus additional costs of heating/lighting in your garage (cold winters at 6am are not fun), invoicing, missing papers, customers refusing to pay after 6 weeks of papers (happened at least once or twice a year).
Even if by some miracle you live where there are absolutely no shops selling newspapers and you have a thousand homes, and you get 300 customers (which in the peak 90's was considered a big number of deliveries for a newsagent), you are simply not going to make more than £3-£5/day of profit for what could end up being 2-3 hours of work every day for you. The kids who you employ to deliver papers will be getting £3/day, so they could end up being paid the same as you for doing 30 minutes of work while you do 2 hours or more, plus all the stress.

And all of that is not including the health and safety stuff that is involved employing children to work for you. One of the reasons my parents hated it in the end was because of all the new laws that came in over health and safety.

I admire your spirit and your keenness to start a business but it sounds to me like you have not a lot of business experience, not really talked to your parents regarding it, and will end up doing a lot of work, a lot of hassles, and a lot of bumps in the road and end up with less money than if you got a paper-round of your own.

If you live in an area where homes have gardens, why not buy a second hand mountain bike, an old wooden trailer to hitch up to it, and ask around for an old second hand petrol mower, and then bang on doors asking if you can cut lawns for £8/lawn. 20 mins cutting a lawn for £8 has to be better than £3 for 2+ hours of work and stress.

 

[Financial-Modeller]

Others have highlighted some of the many pitfalls of the idea.

If you could buy the newspapers at below RRP, perhaps consider getting local self-employed couriers to deliver for you. Its possible that the local Amazon delivery guy would welcome a bit of extra cash to supplement delivery earnings having already driven to the delivery area.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

If you could buy the newspapers at below RRP, perhaps consider getting local self-employed couriers to deliver for you. Its possible that the local Amazon delivery guy would welcome a bit of extra cash to supplement delivery earnings having already driven to the delivery area.

It's really not possible.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Well done on having the drive and desire to start something at your age. Unfortunately, though, this is a real dying market. Newspapers themselves are struggling and sales are in massive decline - see here

https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/uk-n...o-thirds-in-20-years-amid-digital-disruption/

With the few pence you could potentially make on each paper, you might make a very tiny profit for yourself if you did the whole operation - receiving the delivery, sorting, and then delivering. There will just be no margin for you to sit back and pay other people whilst making a profit.

Don't let the responses hear dishearten you too much - keep looking for other ideas and opportunities!