If you are a courier driver running your own small one-person parcel delivery service then one of the thing you will need to give some thought to is how far you are prepared to travel to deliver a parcel. As a small business venture, it may prove difficult to compete with the multi-national courier companies on price.

As a general rule, a small courier service tends to deliver locally. It gives the business the opportunity to become well known in their locality as his or her courier van is seen out and about by a variety of people. You may be surprised just how much business can be picked up by a member of the public or another local business seeing your van in the locality.

You will have your own pricing structure taking into account a variety of things such as the size/weight of the parcel and the distance you need to go to deliver the parcel. If you are delivering a parcel 3 miles away then it will obviously be cheaper than if you were being asked to deliver the parcel 20 miles away. This is because the further you travel the more fuel you will use. You will also spend more time getting to the longer drop off point.

In many respects, it would be a good idea to keep your options open when deciding how far you are prepared to travel in your van to deliver a parcel. It may be a sensible course of action to undertake a mixture of short distance parcel drop offs with a number of longer distance parcel drop offs.

As your business grows and you build experience you will get a better idea of what proves to be more profitable – short distance or long distance. Is it more profitable to deliver 10 parcels within a short distance of each other taking say an hour compared to travelling say 25 miles each way to deliver a parcel and getting caught up in traffic and taking an hour to do so?

There are no doubt some courier drivers who prefer to focus on longer distance drop offs as it gets them to places that they perhaps don’t travel to that often. If you are normally delivering in a town centre and the surrounding area then you may welcome being able to drive 25 miles out into the countryside to deliver a parcel. You may welcome the change in routine and the prospect of getting some fresh country air.

Whatever you decide we hope that you are happy with your decision.