So you’ve just started working or own a new business in South Florida, or maybe you´ve been in business for many years now but since last year realized there is a major demand for businesses to deliver products or services to their clients’ homes and offices. And even if you´ve read about the new statistics regarding products being home delivered, or you just know in your gut that the customer behavior is now changing, and since last year’s covid-19 outbreak the process has only accelerated, you don’t really know how to solve this. You are sure you need to start delivering but you now realize that your entire business may change, since deliveries have a cost, and now you will have to take that into consideration. Whether you decide to charge your clients for deliveries or to take the price upon yourself hoping for better customer loyalty, you will probably see some changes regarding the profitability of your products.

 

So, how can you now respond to this emerging  consumer habit in South Florida?

 

Businesses used to have only two options to solve this: they could use one of the major national carriers, such as FedEx, UPS, or USPS, or they could hire their own drivers to do the job.

If you chose to work with a national carrier, you would get accountability for the service provided and reasonable prices for deliveries within a week. The most common service used by businesses that deliver this way is Ground Shipping. This kind of service ensures that packages will be picked up on the same day, but they may be delivered within a week or so because they need to go to distribution centers to be sorted. So this may be inconvenient for clients that want to receive their products as quickly as possible. This may be suitable for long mile deliveries, but it’s definitely not the best choice for local deliveries.

 

In the second option, you would have to hire your own drivers, or maybe hire independent drivers to do the job. While this may seem like a good idea, because you may be paying less money per stop, in the long term, it most likely will backfire on you. Implementing a successful delivery for big operations means you will have to hire drivers, dispatchers, operation managers, buy tracking software, etc. So this may not be suitable for most businesses. And if you choose to hire independent drivers to take care of a small operation, first of all, make sure your operation maintains small, because if it gets too big for the drivers to handle (and it will) you will get into trouble. Our 20 years of experience in the courier business tells us that problems will come, drivers can get a flat tire, or they can get caught in traffic, etc. When these moments do come it’s better to be prepared.

 

 

The good news is, now there is a better answer to this situation: local couriers. Yes, when businesses need to make local deliveries, their best choice is local couriers. They can provide great prices for fast deliveries and they may have tracking and confirmation technology, or they may even have refrigerated vehicles or other features. If you have special requests from clients, a local courier can accommodate that. If you need to move your packages on coolers to maintain your products at a certain temperature, local couriers can provide that. If you need to keep a record of all deliveries for administrative reasons, or even connect your system directly to the courier system, so when deliveries are placed they go directly to them through an API, local couriers may be able to provide that as well.

While there are bigger national companies like FedEx and UPS, there are some considerable differences when seeking out local delivery systems. Courier services can be a vital resource for small businesses that are seeking out faster, more reliable, and cost-efficient local deliveries. Oftentimes, national companies will charge a fair amount more for same-day delivery, so we should bear in mind that there are other alternatives.

So then how do you know if your company would benefit from using a local courier? We will try to throw some light on your concern in the following paragraphs, and hopefully, after reading it you will be able to make a smarter decision for your business or the company where you work.

First of all, you have to find out whether you have some particular areas where you are sending most of your deliveries, or at least a considerable amount of volume. Unlike the larger national services that can charge you the same for orders going to very different locations, your prices will be significantly lower when you send bulk deliveries to close locations using a local courier.

Another important thing you have to take into consideration is whether you would take advantage of having all your deliveries done on the same day. With local couriers, typically you can place an order on a particular day, and on the next day, your packages are going to be picked up and delivered, therefore providing truly same-day service. While with larger national carriers, the most common kind of service consists of packages being picked up the same day the order was placed but delivered within a week. Asking for a large carrier to provide the same service as a local courier as described above, will often translate into much higher rates.

Local couriers can provide a personalized service that can accommodate your needs, and direct communication that large carriers simply can’t. This could be an important reason when you run a business that depends largely on your client’s satisfaction, and your ability to resolve any problems that may come along.

There are lots of other reasons why your company can benefit from local delivery, for example tracking technology, and delivery notifications, etc. Last but not least, by working with local delivery, you will be supporting your community by choosing to work with a local company like yours. If you would like to learn more about the service that a local courier can provide, use this link to fill the form, and we will get in touch with you.

One of our clients provides, among other services, pharmacy services with home delivery for a big part of their associates (patients). When they first started working with us, they were using a major carrier for all of their deliveries. As you may know, major carriers are very large companies, and when it comes to delivery outside the domestic areas its prices are some of the best. But when we talk about local deliveries and short distances, then a local courier company is by far your best option.

3 ways in which our client benefits from our service

1- When they used one of the major carriers, their deliveries had to go to a distribution center, where they were sorted and then delivered, making it virtually impossible to have the same day or next day delivery. This means unhappy clients and more delays for urgent medication. When we first started working together, they would send us a route manifesto the day before, and all deliveries were made the next day with no exceptions. After some time, we both decided to step up the process and integrate their system to ours through our API, making delivery requests much simpler and automated.

2- Working with Dotexpress guarantees personalized and excellent client service. With a major carrier, they didn’t have the possibility to talk to a personal dispatcher assigned to them, who knew them and was in charge of the whole operation for their company. This translates into a flexible, personalized service, where you can pick-up the phone or write an email and get a response and full flexibility.

3- They were able to lower their delivery cost and shorten their delivery time significantly. While our service is priced according to quality it is designed to be more convenient for local deliveries with progressive decreasing prices for volume deliveries.