Commercial Deliveries

Who actually uses this

Six kinds of customer, and they want slightly different things from the same van.

• Shops and showrooms. Customer deliveries the store cannot carry itself, stock between branches, display units and fixtures. Usually wants a timed window before opening or after closing.
• Trade counters and merchants. A collection from a builders' merchant or a trade counter and a drop to site. Give us the account name and the order reference and we will deal with their desk ourselves.
• Builders and fit-out teams. The missing door, the worktop, the box of tiles, the part that has stopped a job. Frequently same-day, and frequently to a site with no parking.
• Exhibitions and events. Stands, kit, samples and boxes in before the doors open and out again the same night. Bought by the hour rather than the run, because it is a load-out rather than a delivery.
• Offices. Desks, screens, storage and equipment between sites, usually outside working hours so nobody loses a day.
• E-commerce and marketplace sellers. The item a courier network will not take — furniture, appliances, anything oversized — delivered to a customer with the driver carrying it in.

What all six have in common is that the delivery is part of the job rather than an afterthought. If it lands late or lands damaged, something else stops. That is why it is worth paying for a van that is yours for the run.

Accounts and repeat runs

A one-off delivery and a weekly route are not the same commercial proposition, and pricing them identically would be lazy. If the run repeats, set it up once:

• An agreed rate for the route. Not a fresh quote every week, and not a number that moves because it is raining.
• A booked slot. The same day and the same window, so your side can plan around it.
• The same driver where the diary allows. Someone who already knows the site, the gate code, the loading bay and the person to ask for.
• One invoice. Consolidated rather than a payment link per job, with your purchase order or job reference on it.
• A named contact. A mobile number that is answered, for the day something is urgent.

To price it we need the typical collection and delivery postcodes, what a normal consignment looks like, how often it runs and whether there is a fixed time it has to land. Ad-hoc work is welcome too — plenty of accounts are “whenever it comes up” rather than scheduled, and that is still cheaper to run as an account than as a series of unrelated one-off bookings.

What a dedicated van solves that a parcel network cannot

Parcel networks are cheap for a good reason: your item joins a shared route through depots and sorting hubs, changing hands several times, with no single person attached to it. For a padded envelope that is a bargain. For business goods it introduces four problems.

• Size and weight. Most networks simply will not take a sofa, a worktop, a display unit or a commercial fridge. A pallet network will, but then it arrives on a pallet at the kerb.
• Handling. Nobody in a sorting hub is going to blanket-wrap your item. Ours is loaded once, strapped, and unloaded by the person who loaded it.
• Timing. A network sells a day, not an hour. If a delivery has to be in before a shop opens or on a stand before a hall closes, a day is not a plan.
• Accountability. When something goes wrong you get a tracking page. With a dedicated van you get the mobile number of the person holding the goods.

The trade is honest: a dedicated van costs more than a shared route, and where a parcel or pallet network genuinely fits your consignment we will say so rather than take the booking. Where it does not fit, the price difference is buying custody, timing and somebody who carries the thing through the door.

The same applies to the cheap headline prices on the delivery marketplaces. A consolidator or backload site sells space in a van that is already going somewhere: ten jobs share one set of miles, on a multi-day window the driver chooses. That is genuinely good value when a consignment can wait and nobody is expecting it. It is not the same purchase as a van that leaves for you today with nothing else in it, which is why a dedicated same-day courier prices per loaded mile — ours at £1.90 — rather than per share of a route. For business goods the question is usually whether a missed date costs more than the difference.

Priced per run, or by the hour

The two models exist because business jobs split cleanly into two shapes, and putting a job on the wrong one costs you money.

Per run — the per-mile ladder. One collection, one delivery, fixed before we set off and collected today. £55 within the M25; outside it a £95 minimum covering the first 50 loaded miles, then £1.90 a loaded mile. A loaded mile is a mile with your goods in the van, measured collection to delivery — you are not billed for the drive out to you or the empty run home, and there is no fuel surcharge. This is right for a customer delivery, a trade-counter collection, a site drop or an inter-branch transfer — anything that is A to B. A second item from the same pickup adds £25; a second person, where the goods need two, adds £45.

By the hour — multi-drop and load-outs. £89 an hour for a van and two movers, 2-hour minimum, or a fixed block at £340 for four hours and £640 for eight. This is right when there are several drops on one route, when the van is being loaded and unloaded repeatedly, or when the job is an exhibition build, a shop fit or an office move. Mileage is the wrong unit for that work: the time goes at the addresses, not on the road. Between the half and full day it is the half day plus £89 an hour, never more than the full day.

Long routes with a full van — a stock move or a whole load going north — are a day rate with two movers instead: £450 London to the Midlands, £600 London to the North, and a fixed day-rate quote for other routes. Tell us the shape of the job and we will put it on whichever model comes out lower.

Invoicing and proof of delivery

The part that decides whether a delivery firm is usable by a business is rarely the driving. It is whether the paperwork goes through your system without a query.

• Proof of delivery. A photo of the goods at the delivery address and a time-stamped confirmation, sent by WhatsApp or email. That is what we do and all we claim — there is no tracking portal and no signature-capture app, and we are not going to invent one.
• A proper invoice. With your purchase order, job number or site reference on it, so your finance side can match it without ringing you.
• Consolidated billing on accounts. One invoice covering the period rather than a payment link per job.
• The price agreed first. Fixed from a photo or description before collection, so the invoice matches the number you approved.
• A named contact. The driver's mobile during the run, and one number for the account rather than a call centre.

Ask us for the current insurance certificate, cover limits and exclusions that apply to your goods before you book — and if a consignment is unusually valuable, tell us what it is when you ask, so the answer is about your actual job. Congestion Charge (£18) is passed through only where the route crosses the zone in charging hours; the vans are ULEZ-compliant, which matters for regular London work.

What we cannot carry

Short list, and it is better read now than discovered when a van is on your forecourt.

• Hazardous goods. Fuel, gas cylinders, solvents, chemicals and anything else carried under dangerous-goods rules. That is specialist work and we are not it.
• Livestock. Any live animals.
• Waste, on a delivery run. Taking material away is a different service with its own paperwork, and it does not belong on the back of a delivery. If you need something removed rather than delivered, ask and we will price it properly as a collection instead of quietly loading it.
• Documents and small parcels. Not that we cannot — it is that a van is the wrong price. A bike courier across central London or a parcel network overnight will both beat us on cost, and we will say so.

Everything else, ask. Furniture, appliances, catering equipment, display and exhibition kit, IT and office equipment, trade materials, artwork, glass and awkward one-off pieces are all routine. Anything fragile is blanket-wrapped and strapped rather than stacked — see fragile items. Vans are matched to the load: SWB, LWB or Luton, with trolleys, straps, blankets and floor protection as standard.