Major cities have them, large regional towns do too, but AFAIK, there aren’t many cycle couriers in a town the size of, say, Kidderminster. This may be the answer to my question, but on the other hand, with little competition and some savvy marketing, starting out on my own might just work. It strikes me as a great way to start my own business and combine it with biking too. Anyone have any thoughts/experiences on this?

Does Kidderminster need this service?

I would imagine most stuff is emailed these days and even in cities it’s not like couriers are rushed off their saddles.

Tread carefully.

Kiddieminster stil has Royal mail, also a lot of weird roads to navigate.

As said above a taxi or RM are easier.

i knew two lads that made it work in newcastle but they reckoned that was about the staff limit 😕

Agreed ^^^^ I started up a cycle-courier company in Aberdeen (although this would be about 12 years back now). I worked bloody hard at it, then my slack as **** mate business partner dropped out, which didn’t actually matter very much as there wasn’t enough work for the both of us anyway.

I struggled on for a year – this in a city with the largest industrial estates in Scotland. I would no way ever do it again – it nearly broke me.

It might be worth doing six months with an established company (you’d have to move) to see if it’s your cup of tea or not – also to steal business info 🙂

But if you want s service same day, or even a certain time of the day, I’m thinking it offers another element. The town I’m thinking of is not actually Kiddy, but it contains a lot of legal firms, estate agents, accountants etc, that I’d imagine might use a quick and trustworthy service.

But a cycle courier would cost less than a taxi and be quicker than RM. [in answer to project]

I’d have thought your best bet would be to survey businesses, solicitors, offices, etc., to see if they would use the service. If you’re thinking of doing it alone you may struggle without a contact hub to take calls. Couriering is pretty instant and you won’t want to be taking calls on your mobile every 50 metres.

You could deliver sarnies and pizzas too.

You might have more luck if you push the green angle. Might be able to sell the idea to image conscience companies as you’ll struggle to be competitive against taxis etc as it’s not a heavily congested area full of time sensitive industry.

try movingtarget forum

Also what happens when you get knocked off your bike, bad weather, rain ice and snow,also answering the phone may be difficult, as would be writing the addresses down when stopped on the side of the road every fe wminutes, then theres the pricing structure, and dont forget insurance incase you loose something.

If it does work, it would probably be with a select few clients and regular daily deliveries – I can say from experience that project’s scenario does happen if you try to take on too much.

I pinned quite a lot of hope on the legal firms in Aberdeen but most of them already have an old fellow who bimbles from building to building two or three times a day.

I ended up with about two dozen regular clients, all of whom needed stuff delivered a few times a week.

You’re not really behind his idea, are you project 😯 😆

It does sound like a lot of negative responces but the points raised are all very valid. If you had a cash surplus that would allow you do do it for a year, cover the costs involved and not worry if it’s goes A over Ts then give it a go. I would not be willing to try it otherwise. I suspect at best you would only get an income that at days end came out about National Minimum wage.

psling, No not really i already thought of doing it myself, but the time and effort and the logistics didnt work out, thats even before you buy any equipment.

Eg 1 parcel a to b charge £5.00 so doing 1 per hour wouldnt give you muh cash flow, then factor in the insurance, punctures accidents, delays in picking up the parcel, actuaaly carrying the parcel in a safe /dry and secure way, then theres the payment and working out who pays for what.

project, I actually tend to agree with you. I wouldn’t see it working as a sole-trader with no contact hub [as per my earlier post] and I don’t know of anyone who had actually made a living as a courier unless their financial needs have been low and/or it has been a job to fit around other things eg training 🙂

i was a cycle courier in edinburgh for about four months and really enjoyed it for that short period, made a reasonable wage not great but certainly enough to live on but it was then all pretty much cash in hand. main source of work was the legal profession collecting and delivering documents and for ad agencies taking stuff to printers etc but not sure that need hasn’t been replaced by email

Generally there is a lot of work in the legal sector but these days it is all about compliance etc. Lots of firms won’t touch you without ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001( environment) I guess that could be cost prohibitive for a sole trader?

Are there any same day van courier companies in your area that you might be able to use as an umbrela type company?

Thebikechain is wrong couriers are still rushed off their feet, unfortunately they now have to charge a lot less than 8 years ago, this is in monetary cost not even taking inflation into account.