Home delivery is a numbers game

After 44 years in logistics, I consider myself to be fairly experienced – but every day is still a learning day.

I joined the world of two-man (or two-person) delivery from the parcel world more than six years ago.

Buyers of home-delivery services always want a sharp deal. We all understand that. Volumes can be inflated or weights lowered a bit to sharpen the deal.

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Charlie Shiels CEO ArrowXL

After 23 years in parcels, I was used to a certain jargon, such as ‘smalls’, ‘compatibles’, ‘non-comms’, ‘uglies’ and ‘pallets’.

I realised this two-person world had its own language too. A new phrase I learned quickly was ‘one-and-a-half-man delivery’.

Now, let’s think about that for a moment: a one-and-a-half-man delivery! I’m not sure that I have met a colleague who was a one-and-a-half-man delivery-type person in all my years in the business.

You quickly realise it’s a ruse, of course, for customers who want a bigger, heavier, irregular dimension or weight item delivered more cheaply.

It was brought home to me when I recently took delivery of some garden furniture.

I was intrigued because the delivery was from an ex-client who had chosen a lower-cost solution – as the new product was all ‘one-and-a-half man’.

The delivery was a huge box (this is garden furniture, remember), weighed more than 50kg, measured 2m x 0.4m x 0.3m and was delivered by one person. I felt for the guy delivering.

There is no such thing as a one-and-ahalf-man delivery. An item is suitable for a parcel delivery experience and cost, a two-person delivery or even a pallet delivery.

There are, of course, three- and even four-person delivery companies for extra-large items.

But ignoring the reality of a delivery’s weight and/or dimensions seems incredibly risky and unfair to me.

To put a two-person crew on the road, often in a 7.5-tonne truck, is an expensive solution. Staff must be highly trained and required to comply with all relevant O-licence legislation, so it takes high levels of investment.

As with many debates in this area, it comes back to the way consumers are charged for deliveries. The cost increases in our world over the past two years have been frightening – and I am sure most carriers have experienced the same thing.

An area often overlooked is the impact on customer satisfaction and the condition of these heavy and bulky items when they arrive at the customer’s home. The choice of a low initial delivery rate can often be washed away through an increase in volume of returns and the condition of the product when it arrives back with the retailer – and this is before we consider the carbon impact of returns and redelivery.

The key consideration should be overall cost rather than the perceived delivery rate, shouldn’t it?

I am just asking for a bit more reality and a better understanding of the complexity in the differing size/gauge marketplaces.

There really is no such thing as a one-and-a-half-man delivery.

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