A courier business is always in demand, especially with the rise of online shopping and e-commerce businesses as of late. However, starting your own courier business may be tricky. There are issues beyond business competition and marketing that you need to consider.
Are You Suited for the Job?
Having a job in the courier service could mean long hours stuck in traffic in your delivery truck and dealing with the bad driving habits of everyone else around you.
Do you have the patience for dealing with these issues and more? If you can’t stand the challenges that you will face in the courier business, you might not be able to grow your career well.
Choose Your Business Structure
You might want to seek professional legal advice for this. Choose between business operating structures such as sole trader, partnerships, or a proprietary company.
These different business structures will expose you to different profit margins, risks of liability, and tax reliefs. There are also different requirements for you to start up your courier business with these business models, so choose wisely!
Be Aware of the Rules & Regulations
Courier services do not have specific laws to them, but you do need to take note of the insurance issues and any health and safety standards especially if you are employing others within your business.
However, there have been recent changes for motor vehicle fringe benefits tax. Previously, FBT applied different tax rates to more than 570 thousand cars purchased on salary sacrifice. Now, a standard 20% FBT tax rate applies instead.
Create Your Business Plan
If you can withstand the long driving hours and other people’s bad driving habits, you still need to project your business costs and your projected profits.
How many staff are you starting with? Which area will you cover? What are the optimal routes for your delivery and how much will fuel costs be?
You will also need to consider how much capital you have to start your business while still maintaining a good living standard at the beginning of your business. Going into debt in order to start-up your business must be carefully considered. Repayments need to be manageable and within the budget.
Research Your Competitors
If you aren’t sure where to start researching your competitors, there are Australia organisations that you can be a part of to give you a head start.
Join the Logistics Association of Australia (LAA) to find out more about other courier companies in your area. This industry body can also attract potential customers.
Manufacturers, marketers and sales professionals are among some of the audience that will visit LAA to find out more about courier services that they can work with.
Make Use of Offline Advertising
If there is one thing that you can rely on as a low-budget advertisement, it’s your delivery trucks. Your business will need several vehicles to deliver goods to your recipients, so why not utilise all that free space on your vehicle for advertising?
Create truck signages and stickers that include your business name, address and contact number. You can even add your business tagline to let nearby drivers know what your business is all about. This is a great way of advertising in your local area. After the initial cost of getting the signage on the truck then you have free advertising every day your delivery vehicles are on the road.
Choose the Right Company to Work with
Which company would you like to work for? When you are selecting the company that you want to deliver goods for, there are several factors that you will need to consider.
Make sure that the company you work with has clear evidence of a stable flow of work for you. Where possible, working for a company with a good reputation will also help your company to grow in the long run.
