Nobody likes to have a quiet time within their business’s timetable, and it is doubly irritating when not only are your trucks and vehicles either sitting empty or partly loaded, but your drivers are twiddling their thumbs.
However, there are ways to get around this, and with some forethought and organization, make this a thing of the past.
#1 Offer discounts to loyal customers
You can try to offer shipping discounts to your loyal customers. This can work exceptionally well if you put package or shipment size criteria on the discount. This means that those customers that have large orders to ship will either be your target or not, depending on how you work the offer.
If you concentrate on those customers with larger shipments to offer the discount, you may find it can encourage those customers who generally ship smaller size loads to increase their shipments so that they can qualify as well.
#2 Use load board facilities
Using load-boarding facilities to top up any empty space in your delivery vehicles can make very good business sense. Load boards list shipping work that is available for shipping companies, couriers, or delivery drivers to collect and deliver. These load boards are available on websites that belong to shipping brokers, such as Shiply.
Those interested parties are required to bid on the jobs that they are interested in performing, and it is purely up to the customer if they take the offer made or not. You will find that all instructions on how to use these sites are well documented within the website itself, making this a particularly easy way of obtaining more work and fuller delivery loads for your drivers.
#3 Hire out your vehicles and drivers to local businesses
If, however, you find that you have whole trucks sitting idle, you can contact local businesses to see if they would like to rent your truck and driver for a specified period. You may be surprised by the response. Not every business has or can afford its own fleet of delivery vehicles but would very much like to have access to some over the course of a month.
Using this to your advantage, you may be able to make a bit of money or at least cover your driver’s wages and then some. But you will have to make sure that you have a legally binding contract drawn up and ensure that those businesses you approach know that the service is not given for free. Cover of driver wages, fuel used, and wear and tear on the vehicle should be taken into consideration when working out a price.
Final thoughts
So, filling up your delivery vehicles needn’t be a hard feat. There are different methods that you can either combine or carry out solely on their own. For instance, encourage your loyal customers to ship more in quantity in their shipments, use load board facilities to fill gaps, utilize empty vehicles, or rent certain vehicles out to your neighboring businesses for delivery days.
