Tips For Growing Your Shipping Company Using Technology and More

Over the past decade, shipping has ballooned from something that larger firms tend to handle to something even small companies can take part in. That’s in part because there are so many different things you can have delivered to your home – from electrical and clothes through to furniture and groceries. Given this rise in delivery expectations, it’s a great time to get into the shipping business; but if you’re running your own shipping firm, how can you capitalize on the growing need for couriers and haulage services?

This guide offers tips to help you grow and profit from your firm.

Contracts

As well as securing bit-part work and discrete jobs, you should also be looking for longer-term relationships that will keep you earning cash throughout the year. These contracts may be with local retailers or with large depots that deliver hundreds of thousands of goods to customers per month. It’s up to you to get in touch, provide a reliable service, and impress these potential clients.

Often, you’ll find yourself in the running for a long-term contract out of chance. You’ll do a job, the customer will be impressed, and they’ll enquire about your rates in the longer term. You can orchestrate these conversations yourself, by handing out business cards or flyers to each customer that you serve.

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Technology

There’s plenty of technology out there to help you find new customers and optimize your delivery methodology. For one, you should be using the latest technology to help you plan routes and loads more effectively. This might include something like a GPS tracking system to find better routes, or perhaps a 3G shipping software to help you optimise performances. This way, you’ll ensure you’re never needlessly duplicating journeys or sending out drivers with loads that aren’t optimal for the distance they’re driving.

Then there are the new websites such as Shiply that can help you link up with more work at a faster rate. You can join their load board here – https://www.shiply.com/us/load-board – in order to upload your capacity and the kinds of prices you charge for jobs. Then you’ll simply find the work that’s best-priced and best-suited to your kind of operation.

Fleet Expansion

The more contracts you accrue, the more likely you are to be able to add drivers and vehicles to your fleet. With guaranteed cash coming through the door each day, it’s easy to start planning your expansion, and that will essentially mean finding drivers who you pay to conduct the jobs you have on your roster.

When expanding your shipping company, be aware that you’re taking a risk. Employing more workers on contracts means that you’re going to have to be earning enough to pay their wages. Another option is to work with more flexible contracts, which might help protect you driving periods when you don’t have so much work. These aren’t unusual in the industry, and can end up giving you that all-important wiggle room if you’re in a gap between orders or large contracts where you’re earning a little less than you’d anticipated.

Make use of the tips outlined above in order to build up your fleet and expand your shipping company, profiting off the modern world’s reliance on swift worldwide deliveries.