How To Start A Courier Business
How to Make Money from Courier Business
You are here because you want to learn how to start a courier business, you are at the right place. You may spend so much time every day outside running an errand. At greater part of the day, you are on the move, going around town, stopping at different locations to complete one errand or the other. Assuming you get paid to do the same for other people and businesses, not a bad idea, is it?
Courier business is ever-increasing in attractiveness in this eCommerce era when people now prefer shopping online rather than on the high street. The need for courier services has sharply escalated.
Within the climate of growing and intense competition in a fragmented market and quality reliance, starting your own courier business can be an insightful move for business people with the desire to be their boss. But you still have a chance to enter the industry with a niche that is not yet explored.
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Different types of courier businesses that you could establish are listed below:
- Bicycle courier – messengers who work for courier companies carrying and delivering items by bicycle.
- Motorcycle courier – like bicycle messengers, motorbike courier use a motorbike to carry and deliver items.
- Van courier – the motor car is used to delivering items
- Drone delivery service – this is unmanned aerial vehicles that deliver lightweight packages.
- International courier services – this is courier service done across national boundaries.
- Same-day delivery courier – This is a courier service that must be performed the same day.
- Standard courier — This is the normal delivery of couriers, mails, documents, parcels by daily schedule.
Guide on how to start a courier business
If you are nursing the ambition about establishing your courier service, I am going to show you how you should go about it in these steps.
- Prepare a Courier Business Plan
- Have A Name For Your Courier Business
- Register the Business
- Have a logo and brand your service offering
- Decide On The Legal Structure of the Business
- Create A Website
- Open a Business Bank Account
- Agree On The Type Of Delivery Options You Will Offer
- Determine A Pricing Structure
- Get Vehicles or motorbikes:
- Organize adequate storage space
- Organise for other materials and equipment
- Ensure your courier business
- Marketing Your Courier Business
- Know Your Area
- Recruit Employees
- Offer Customers’ Satisfaction
- Conclusion
Prepare a courier business plan
A business plan is like a road map that guides you through courier service operations. The plan can also help you secure funding for the business, should you require a loan to set up the business and/or run the day to day business operations.
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A good courier business plan should contain the following information:
Projected income and expenditure for about one year. This will guide the management of the courier service company and assist in obtaining funding for the courier service company if needed.
There will be a breakdown of the initial capital outlay and it will cover money to be spent on renting an office apartment, storage warehouse, motor van or motorbike and other equipment to be needed in running the courier service..
Research project for your courier service – this will include researching your potential competitors’ activities in terms of their number, size, methods of selling, promotion, and pricing their courier services. What is their level of income on sales and their expenditure in the current year of operation?
How competitors market their courier services? What promotional tools they use and their level of expenditure on promotion, their pricing policies and their method of delivering parcels and other items to customers.
Marketing – This informs the stakeholders how you want to capture your potential market segments in terms of:
– packaging your courier service, pricing, distribution, etc
– advertising policies and strategies.
Have A Name For Your Courier Business
Select a business name that is memorable enough, different from others and stands out. You must be creative and venture to tie the name to the sort and quality of service you provide so that people will not be at a loss when recommending your courier business to others.
Register the business
Once you have decided on the legal structure of the business and determined the name, you can offer the chosen name for registration. The reason for business registration is simply to officially recognise your business as an entity, differentiate it from other courier businesses, and essentially to put a permanent seal on the name to prevent others from using the name.
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Have a logo and brand your service offering
Your courier business logo can be likened to branding the services you offer in terms of standing your business out from the crowd, i.e., differentiating it out from other courier companies. Therefore it must be professionally designed to make it easily recognizable.
Having a logo and keeping an online presence including a digital marketing strategy is good to identify your courier company. You should do more to differentiate your business from competitors. This could be by having a company uniform and a specifically designed fleet of motorbikes or vehicles.
Decide On The Legal Structure of the Business
Before you launch your courier business, you will need to figure out its legal structure. For instance, are you going to operate as a sole proprietorship, partnership, and limited liability company (LLC) or a corporation? There are merits and demerits inherent in any of the four business structures. You must decide on the best for your courier business particularly it all depends on the level you want to operate.
Create A Website
By creating a website, you are reaching out to a wider audience and ensure your competitiveness. You should, therefore, use the opportunities available on social media to drive traffic to your site and ensure you are in the minds of as many people as possible. Make sure to include in your website, your profile picture, your services, rates, and if available, any believable customer testimonials. WordPress is a good platform as it is very users friendly.
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Open a Business Bank Account
To separate your bank account from the account of the business, you may have to open a business account. This separation is necessary to keep business revenue and expenses separate from a personal account to determine at every stage of your business whether you are making profit or loss. A current account is ideal for business purpose.
Agree on the type of delivery options you will offer
There are various delivery options available you can choose from but it all depends on your level of operation. For instance, you have the option to offer a one-hour delivery service, a standard delivery service or one-day delivery service to your customers. Any guide on how to start a courier business should let you know about this.
Determine A Pricing Structure
Before you launch your courier business to the outside world, you need to figure out a pricing structure that will generate your profit goal. The following pricing strategies are available;
Cost-plus a mark-up
Average market price
Cost-plus expected profit
Cost-plus a fixed amount
Industrial average price
But to arrive at a specific price, you must research your competitors’ activities to make a comparison before making your final selection of a pricing policy.
Get Vehicles or motorbikes
For a person who is ready to learn how to start a courier business, you should know that one of the important tools in a courier’s toolbox is motorbikes/vehicles. You must determine and specify the type of vehicles/motorbikes you want to use to run your courier service company. The size of items you will be transporting will determine whether you need vehicles or motorbikes. Whatever is the case – vans or motorbikes, they need to be reliable.
Organize Adequate Storage Space
You may need a storage warehouse to keep packages and parcels that need to go out for delivery. Before your courier is launched, make sure your storage space is in place to avoid loss or pilferage.
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Organise For Other Equipment And Materials
To function effectively, apart from company vehicles, you’ll have to procure other equipment and materials, such as a two-way radio, GPS unit, mobile phones, stationery and others. These are particularly necessary to enable you to execute customer orders at the right time and in the right order.
Ensure Your Courier Business
Ensure you take out business insurance on your entire business in case of an accident involving you or your employee and/or your equipment or premises are damaged or lost. The possibility of suits arising from customer’ packages or parcels are not uncommon, so adequate insurance is necessary to safeguard customers’ items in your custody.
Marketing Your Courier Business
Launching your courier business means pushing information about your courier services into the public domain. Launch a business page on Facebook and use social media to promote your business and create awareness about the services of your new business. You can also use a targeted ad on Facebook and acquire email list to reach various individuals and businesses. Advertise in the local community newspaper, on local radio, and in shop-windows to create awareness and generate interest from the public.
Know Your Area
You should know the area you want to operate reasonably well before you open to the public. The reason for this is simple: you will be able to deliver packages and parcels more quickly and efficiently.
Recruit Employees
You can’t be busy on the road delivering packages, and at the same time be in the office, taking important phone calls and managing the office. So for you to maintain orderliness in running the office, you must engage some hands to either manage the office or help with the deliveries. That is, you cannot successfully run a courier business as a one man show. You should be willing to employ people that will work for you.
Offer Customers’ Satisfaction
This guide on how to start a courier business will not be complete without mentioning the importance of customers’ satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is important in the courier service business. Fast delivery is one of the traditional ways to win your customers’ heart. Transparency is another beautiful way to give your customers value for money. Sometimes, they need to know so much about their parcels and packages while on transit. If this is the case, you can send them SMS, email at every checkpoint.
You can even apply a better solution by developing a real-time delivery tracking system. By installing this system, you will reduce the physical efforts required for this exercise and at the same time enhance your customers’ satisfaction.
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Conclusion:
With this how to start a courier business guide, I believe you have gained some insight. Nevertheless, courier business is very competitive and anyone going into it must have a passion for it and at the same time be dedicated to the business. Though you can carve a niche that may not have been explored, you must nevertheless work assiduously if you have to be successful in this competitive terrain.