I have the opportunity to gain a contract with a Ecommerce furniture website and need some advice..

[Mikhail Joseph]

Hey guys, been a while.. I know. Busy busy.. Still at it, still haven't given up.

I've been running my own little offline delivery service and I was recently hired by someone who was paying me $40 a delivery.. I could manage up to 8 a day in the small van I own.

However, this wanker has screwed me and isn't paying me... Whilst I can accept a loss on the 900 I was meant to be getting ( I hadn't delivered much the past 2 weeks as I had a feeling ).. I'm not too fussed.

I instead decided to get a hold of the Director and figured it's better to screw this a**hole by taking his business rather than bitching over 900 dollars. All good.

I got a call with the director if this company and offered him my service and asked if I can have melbourne instead of the previous guy who hired me. I let him know what's been happening down here and how his company is getting a bad reputation via the courier service I was delivering for. He told me he was thinking about cutting out this guy and looking for business else where anyway. Great I thought, so i pitched my service and fastfoward, here we are with an email asking what rates I charge and that perhaps we can do business together.

So here I am, never in my life have I done something like this but as im more experienced with private quoting and services, I'm not experienced with dealing with proper companies.

So I ask, what rates should I offer him?

Mind you, a lot of the items are flatpack beds, boxed wine coolers and sometimes saunas. It's mostly outdoor furniture and bed sets and dining sets etc.

He told me that he was paying $55 a delivery to the guy who hired me. However, on the website of the ecommerce store, the saunas have delivery fee of 270$.

The beds get delivered for fee of around 35 dollars, but saunas and fridges range from 70 - 200 $ a delivery.

I'm just a little stuck here because I don't want to screw this up and risk losing business with this person.

is it okay to ask what rates he was paying to the person who originally hired me?



Cheers,
Mike

 

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[miked_d]

What are your expenses? Gas, insurance, vehicle wear and tear, tolls, parking tickets...
How much does it cost for a competent driver? Don't forget to pay yourself.

Those costs should help you figure out the minimum you would accept.

You said the middle-man was offering $40 per delivery. Was that for any item? It would seem to me that larger items require more help and should cost more (but I have no experience here).

Hope this helps.

 

[biophase]

Are you just dropping off, or are you carrying the sauna from the truck into the backyard? Don't you need another guy with you to do some of these deliveries?

I would set my rates based on the item, just like on his website. If you were getting paid $40 before, was this for any size object?

 

[Mikhail Joseph]

Are you just dropping off, or are you carrying the sauna from the truck into the backyard? Don't you need another guy with you to do some of these deliveries?

I would set my rates based on the item, just like on his website. If you were getting paid $40 before, was this for any size object?

Well what I found out last night is that the guy who hires me is using a metric system for delivering the items. But yeah, I was paid 40 dollars per delivery.. I wouldn't take things I could not fit or take alone, however if I ever did the customers needed to help.

Perhaps I need to figure out what some of the competitors are charging as rates.

 

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