Types of Couriers & Delivery Services - Information for Customers

 

There are a lot of different terminology used to describe courier services and the different types of delivery.  We have prepared this user guide to help customers work out exactly what type of courier service is best for you right now.

Sameday Deliveries

Sameday deliveries are for the really important of high value items.  With a sameday courier you book, either online or by phone, a vehicle, either a motorbike or a van, will turn up and collect your parcel, and they will drive straight to the delivery address.  Normally, with sameday courier jobs, your delivery will be the only one of the vehicle.  It's a bespoke service, the chauffeur driven limousine of the courier world.

Sameday deliveries are frequently used by the legal professions and other professions where contract, paperwork and documents all need to be prepared and signed and processed, within a very tight deadline.    Sameday couriers are all about deadlines and must have deliveries.  If time is the most important requirement for your delivery, then it's a sameday courier that you will need.

Because the sameday courier service is all about speed, then the price that you pay will be at the top end of the scale.  The charges for sameday courier jobs are based on the number of miles between the collection and delivery point, this reflects the time taken to do the job, and also the fact that the vehicle in question is dedicated to your delivery.  Rates for same day couriers vary tremendously, motorcycle couriers are cheaper than vans. London couriers tend to charge more per mile, because it takes longer to cover the distance due to the congestion in London during the daytime.  However, for a van, you are normally looking at a minimum of £1 per mile.

 

Overnight Deliveries

When items are sent on an overnight delivery, then the parcels usually end up going via a parcel network, with a central and/or local sorting hubs.  Your local courier will collect your parcel and drive it to the nearest local sorting hub, the parcel will be sorted using an automated conveyor system and will be loaded in cages into the HGVs that you see driving up and down the motorways at night.  The HGV will take your parcel to the nearest regional hub for the delivery address, and from there it will be sent out on the local couriers van for delivery to the receiver.

Overnight deliveries using parcel networks are far far cheaper than Sameday couriers.  This is because the parcel carrier networks all work on a mass volume basis.  Where the sameday courier is your bespoke tailored service, the overnight parcel service is the mass produced off the peg product.

During a normal transit, a parcel can expect to be loaded and unloaded approximately 10 times.  Take a look here at this DPD video for a better idea of how one the UK's biggest and newest parcel hubs works.

Because of this, packing and packaging is very very important.  Please see our guide here on quick and simple steps that you can take to ensure that your package is properly delivered.

The prices paid for overnight deliveries on a parcel service, are a fraction of the price that you would pay for a sameday delivery.  And this is because the process is automated, and based on a critical volume.  A small proportion of parcels (around 1-5% depending on the parcel carrier) will not get delivered first time, may get delayed, and may get damaged in transit. 

So if you item is fragile, or very valuable, you have to ask yourself  whether saving a bit of money on the delivery price is the most important consideration.  Or is the fact that the item gets delivered on the day required, in perfect condition, 100% important. 

At Boxby we recommend CCL for Parcel deliveries.  CCL use three main carriers, Interlink/DPD, Fedex and UPS.  These parcel carriers all sit at the top end of the reliability scale for parcel deliveries.

 

Back Loads and Part Load Rates

One way to get cheaper delivery prices is to try and get your delivery done by a courier that already has courier jobs booked on your delivery route.  These were originally known as Back Load jobs, where the courier would have a full paying sameday delivery on the way out, and look for other jobs that they could do on the way back.  The back load jobs were done at a cheaper rate because the outgoing sameday job has already paid for the expenses for the trip.

Some couriers have expanded this business model to cover outgoing jobs too, and therefore price all of their jobs as part load jobs.  Meaning that the van will always have a number of delivery jobs on it, that will be delivered during the course of journey, picking up and delivering all the way around.

Couriers and delivery companies that do this usually price the jobs based on the time & distance that each particular delivery will add to an already scheduled route.  And therefore the prices are a lot cheaper than the full sameday delivery rates.

This kind of service is very good for suppliers and customers that have a degree of flexibility in their delivery requirements.  If a job can be delivered anytime over the next 3-4 working days, then there is much more chance that a courier will be going near the delivery address with other jobs, and therefore the customer will get a much cheaper courier price.  However, they will still be more expensive than a parcel price.

Part loads and Back loads are very good for items that are too large, heavy, fragile or valuable for a parcel service, or any of the items on the parcel carriers prohibited items lists.   Boxby is a website that specialises in these kinds of deliveries. Customers looking to get deliveries done for prices cheaper than the sameday courier rates, for items that are not suitable for a parcel service.