Three Reasons Why Overnight Or Same-Day Business Deliveries Are Expensive
Posted on: 21 August 2017
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Overnight delivery or same-day delivery options are ideal options when you forget to ship something or a customer wants their order yesterday. However, you will always pay a lot more for these options, causing you to lose money on sending them. As far as business deliveries go, these two options should be limited to a few per month, or request the shipping and handling costs in the final cost of the products shipped. If you have ever wondered why these options are so expensive, the following explanations should help you understand.
Avoiding Traffic in Rush Hour
Same-day deliveries mean that the modes of transportation used to get your deliveries to your customers requires creativity. However your shipping company chooses, they have to get through rush hour traffic three times a day and avoid accidents and tickets. This may mean employing bike couriers, helicopter transports over the city, or alternate routes that consume a lot more time and gas.
Jet Transport with No Stops
Overnight deliveries often utilize jet transports, especially if the distance overnight is more than five hundred miles. A delivery truck driver that drives all night can only make sixty or seventy miles in an hour. That translates to about five hundred miles in one night, hardly enough for packages that have to travel farther. Hence, your deliveries are loaded onto the jet and make it to their destination city (or close to it) in one-third to one-half the time of a truck driver.
Unfortunately, that means that the high cost of shipping pays for jet fuel. Your payments to the shipping company pay for a very small portion of the jet fuel. Other businesses who also send overnight packages through the same shipper are also contributing to the cost of jet fuel.
Overnight Deliveries over Short Distances
Overnight deliveries traveling less than five hundred miles often go by truck. Because driving at night is a health risk to the driver, shipping companies pay the driver a higher wage for working this shift. Your shipping fees cover the cost of the third shift driver's increased wages and the cost of gas to drive a heavy truck laden with packages. The driver may make a few bathroom break stops and a meal stop on the way, but you cover the rest of the time and gas to make these overnight deliveries happen for your customers. If your customers cover the shipping costs, that is what they are paying for.
For more information, contact companies like Morningside Courier Systems.