While Delivery Quote Compare can help you find competitively priced couriers with our bidding system, there’s still one way of getting great low costs when trying to courier something that’s available anywhere. If budget is a huge concern for you then couriering your item via a return or back load can help reduce the price to something you’re more comfortable with. But what exactly is a back load?
Couriers deliver on a route, from point A (the depot) to point B (the delivery address). But it pays more to have multiple point B’s along the way to their ultimate destination, allowing them to spread the cost of their drivers across multiple clients, making it cheaper all round. But what often happens is that with all their deliveries made on the way to that ultimate point B, the van remains empty on its way back to the depot, and that simply isn’t cost effective.
To combat that, couriers offer even cheaper prices for anyone who’s delivery address is along a route the driver can take on their return from a Point B, making their driver potentially a little more circular but ultimately cheaper for everyone involved. What that means for you is lower prices, but the price you pay for that is a delay on your delivery.
Organising these routes is a logistical puzzle, and your item may not be delivered for several days at best whilst the courier company try to find not only a return route, but also a Point B near your delivery address that can be used to create that return route. Once that’s been found, your item will be on its way, but before it’s delivered it will first make the trip up to the ultimate Point B of a regularly paying customer before it begins its journey back towards the depot and, along the way, your delivery address.
By helping courier companies utilise return journeys you not only get charged a smaller fee, but you also help increase the positive impact that company makes on the environment by reducing wasted journeys. And, of course, with DQC’s help you can get even lower costs by having registered courier companies bid for your business. To get your quotes for return journeys simply specify this when filling out your information or, alternatively, enquire with the courier of your choice.