Main considerations for couriers offering same day delivery services

Ever done online shopping or browsed a courier website to see the offering of a same day courier service? Chances are most people will have first hand experience at being on the receiving end of this service, or know someone else who has. Same day delivery sounds exceptionally tempting from the customers point of view. It can be almost the equivalent of a ‘click and collect’ service, where you receive goods within hours, but not having to even leave the home! A service that is this precise and bespoke does bring up a lot of logistical and practical considerations for couriers – the very people who run these services and need to ensure they run smoothly. In our latest article, we’ll take a look at what some of these main factors are.

1) Staffing levels and capability

Same day courier services can not run on limited or skeleton staff. Not only does there need to be a pool of people who can execute this service, there also needs to be enough staff to run the general, day to day, or ordinary courier services also. As we reported on recently and has widely been circulated in the media, courier and delivery drivers are in short supply and demand for skilled workers is very high. Only those established businesses with a range of employees can offer reliable same day delivery services.

At the same time, not everyone who is employed as a courier or delivery driver can handle a same day schedule. Deadlines are tight for obvious reasons, and the job can be very pressured. There is the need to maintain high standards of health and safety in a very short and limited time. New or inexperienced couriers may struggle for example.

2) Distance

All businesses are a lesson in economics and accounting – not only literally, but also in their modes and principles of operation. It is all about balance. Does supply meet demand? Are there too few people employed with massive workloads, or are employees twiddling their fingers because they are not occupied enough? Same day deliveries follow these principles too. If you are offering a same day service and can only deliver to one place per day chances are this will not be logistically, practically, or economically viable for both the company or customer base as a whole. If you are in a position where you can handle multiple same day deliveries per day, the situation is very different. A lot of this is down to the distance travelled between jobs and getting it right can be a fine and precise art.

3)  Costs

By the very nature of the service, same day deliveries attract higher costs to the customer because of the quick delivery times. Whilst money is no object to some customers or businesses, many have budgets, especially in the current times we all face and live in. Couriers have to balance the charges they place on customers, against their own costs, time and resources. Sometimes it can be down to very tight margins on both ends. Only those couriers who have established businesses can really offer same day courier services, because they have the fall-back of being able to rely on other revenue streams, while still providing a competitive service to the customer, and not making a loss themselves.

4) Need

Not everyone will need a same day courier service. Some people are happy to wait the extra day or few. Some industries have greater requirements for quicker delivery, where engagement with a same day service may be more practical and feasible. In determining this, research into the market is key, and where an individual courier or delivery company fits within this. If a service can be offered and there is sufficient demand for it, there is an obvious green light. The problem comes where time and resources have been wasted in poor planning because offering a same day service was not the most practical thing to do.

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