A friend of mine has had a rough couple of years, but things are now picking up a bit for him. He's recently started a driving job, but its hard work and awful pay (below minimum wage) so he is viewing it as a stop gap.
Hes been offered self employed work as a courier doing same day longish distance deliveries e.g. London to Scotland.
He is all up for this and sees this as his future but I am a bit nervous for him - I think he has been given a bit of a sales pitch (this is work with one of the large courier companies) i.e. he will always get a return load etc etc.
From what I could see on the net it looks a hard way to make a living plus the up front costs of Van, Insurance etc are high (and its money he doesnt have) so he will be well out of pocket before he starts to earn anything, and the double load appears to be an occasional rather than guaranteed each trip.
Is anyone here familiar with this business model and knows what you really can make?
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I'm sure someone will be along shortly who does know this business sector but I'm afraid I don't. However, I did spend many years self-employed and a few comments / observations spring to mind.
The best thing about being your own boss, is being your own boss. Little things, like you want to take an afternoon off to watch your kid's sportsday and you don't have to ask anyone. You want to take a particular week as a holiday, you just do it. By and large, the harder you are prepared to work, the more you'll earn, but...
On the other hand, you take a holiday and no one pays you. You are off sick, no one pays you. you have to manage your own income tax affairs, not too hard, but some find it daunting. If your turnover exceeds a given limit you have to register for VAT and manage that. Again, not too hard and can have its advantages but needs to be done and while you're doing that you're not working so you're not earning.
Depends on how the arrangement your friend is looking at works but I'd guess at least some of the business will need to be gained by canvassing or advertising or at least some method of communicating availability and that costs something in both time and effort. Again you're not earning while you're organising or doing that.
It can be quite exciting though. Doesn't suit everyone. Others take to it like a duck to water.
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The self employment / own boss thing will not be an issue for him. He had his own business until a couple of years back when several large customers folded on him. He struggled on for a bit but the bank and customs closed in on him.
My concerns are that he has been given a good sales job and all that glistens .........
My understanding is that he does nothing bar pick up and deliver - the jobs are all driven through a large courier company and he gets paid for each mile he covers with their packages on board, but I suspect that the work will not be as frequent as they have implied (as much as he wants) and he runs the risk of having no return work from more remote areas. If he has to drive back empty I would imagine that will wipe out any profit on the original job.
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You would have to worry that a large courier company would be more likely to pass you the unprofitable jobs.
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Is the the yellow courier company?
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I fancied a bit of bike couriering about 10 years back when I bought this Honda. I only wanted part-time so I rang a local delivery firm. 'Great' said the manager, ' I can use you today, but we insist on you having the proper insurance '. I only wanted middle distance work, not dashing around the city, I didn't need the money, it was more a case of getting out on the bike more.
He was really keen, Mature, advanced police biker with a machine having a large, lockable bin under the seat.
Insurance killed it stone dead...the cheapest quote from all the firms in the back of the bike mags was around £1500.00.........................dream dashed in a phone call !
Ted
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I can't be much help Mikey but we do have a couple of Members who are couriers.
They always seem to say the 'backloads' never materialise and if you refuse a job once, for whatever reason, the amount of work you get seems to drop.
He needs to look at this link and consider joining so at least, he can arrange his own return loads.
www.courierexchange.co.uk/
HTH
Pat
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>> Is the the yellow courier company?
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Yep (unless there's more than one that I cant think of at the moment)
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You need to be a certain type...
I tried it for a while, driving a company van.
I had to be ready for this 1st run at IIRC 7.30. Sometimes the 1st call was 9.00.
One night I was driving into the smoke @ 12.30am, climbed in bed around 2.00.
Had to be up and ready to rumble for the 7.30 start.
I lasted about 2 weeks - I gave it up, as I felt to shattered to drive.
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I worked as a bike courier in the 80's and was based in South London .
I worked originally for a large company but as self employed and as others have said it involved a lot of hanging around and unsocial hours, fuel and vehicle costs and maintenance , not a job to everyones taste but you were independent.
It used to pay £1 per mile - the good days could be very good , up to £ 100 in a day in the 80s was good money but other days it might only be £30 .
I would suggest your mate hires a van at the outset for a month or two and see how it goes.
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I'd often thought self-employed medium distance courier might suit as a "retirement" job... until I costed it all properly set against the rates received per parcel.
I looked at it from the view of buying a clean modern used van, obtaining all the correct insurances including motoring business use, 3rd-party liability and cover for parcels in transit.
Vehicle running costs were estimated for the year including contingancy costs to cover hiring a replacement vehicle for servicing/breakdown periods.
Then there were the inevitable personal costs such as meals & drinks while out and about.
Also it became obvious the hours away from home could end up being close to 10-12 many days... too much for what I was looking for. Finally there was a degree of uncertainty around any time off you needed for holiday, emergency or sickness. It seemed you really needed to work in with another driver who might cover any absence and vice versa.
It just didn't work out for me, I'd have been better taking a part time Co-op shelf stacking job on basic wages.
In what I do now I send several parcels a week with UPS and it's no wonder the margins for a self-employed driver in similar businesses are low when the cost to customer of a bulky 20kg package is only £9.65 from one end of the country to another with a quality carrier and several pounds less with a cheaper outfit.
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My brother in law worked for a while as a free-lance courier/taxidriver, and at the time it suited his needs for freedom of working and lots of money.
He was registered with the courier company, and he simply on a whim could radio in and ask them what jobs they had going. He did a lot of deliveries of urgent medical supplies, business papers etc, and also people needing door to door taxi-ing at short notice.
He only did long-distance, and sometimes without warning he would announce late at night that he was off to Edinburgh or somewhere to collect a blood sample or deliver a legal document.
Sometimes they called him and tried to tempt him to do a job. If he was busy and didn't really want to go they would offer higher rates. It all seemed to be by negotiation on the spot.
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>> He did a lot of deliveries of urgent medical supplies, business papers etc, and also people needing door to door taxi-ing at short notice.
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Did he find that it was worthwhile, after getting and maintaining his private hire licence from the Local Authority and private hire insurance for his car?
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My music teacher does a bit of courier work in the day sometimes.
I've not asked much about it as I'm concentrating on demi-semi-quavers, but I've picked up that:
He uses his own car
It's all local sociable hours stuff
He's used words like "Hermes" and "Next"
He's been doing it for a few months and seems to be happy with it
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>> My music teacher does a bit of courier work in the day sometimes.
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>> I've not asked much about it as I'm concentrating on demi-semi-quavers, but I've picked up
>> that:
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>> He uses his own car
>> It's all local sociable hours stuff
>> He's used words like "Hermes" and "Next"
>> He's been doing it for a few months and seems to be happy with it
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As above.
Did he find that it was worthwhile, after getting and maintaining his private hire licence from the Local Authority and private hire insurance for his car?
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I don't know. One would assume so or he wouldn't still be doing it.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Thu 11 Apr 13 at 09:06
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Unless he doesn't bother?
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The point that I was clumsily making, was that these "little driving jobs" are, if you have the correct and appropriate licencing and insurance arrangements in place, probably not worth doing.
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Yep that's about right for the business model of those that deliver for Next etc. I know a couple of people who do it locally. They do not declare their income for tax and they do not insure their cars for business use... even then is barely worth it for the stress involved in trying to get a completed delivery on a whole weeks parcels.
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Couriering, as described, isn't a 'job' at all but sort of lumpen capitalism, like minicabbing used to be. If the worker owns the 'means of production' - the vehicle in this case - then he's a little small capitalist working in an unbalanced cooperative with others (unbalanced because the firm which owns the radio and the phone numbers holds all the cards, and takes advantage of the fact).
Worked all this out when minicabbing in the seventies. I quite enjoyed it in a way and for a while. But it was hard unhealthy work and herself says it had deplorable effects on my attitudes, behaviour and language.
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Thanks for all the comments - a lot of what has been said was aligned with my suspicions.
Will try and persuade him that renting a van initially may be the best option plus taking a look at Pats link.
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Anyone familiar with the courier business? - Runfer D'Hills
