Stand And Deliver!

One of the most important things that startups need to get right straight off the bat is their logistics and delivery services. Without these working properly you won’t have the supplies you need to make your products or be able to shift them once they are sold. But what are the golden rules of logistics for a start-up firm? Read on to find out.

Don’t break the supply chain

The first rule that you need to consider in your startup is that you want the supply chain to remain unbroken. That means if you need materials, packing or other elements from a supplier they need to be there in the correct numbers, at the time that you need them. Otherwise, it is impossible to continue on with your production.

But how is this attainable? Well in part it’s dependent on you suppliers, and their delivery services. So ensure you pick one that is honest about their stock levels as well as fair about their process.

However, it also related to your own ability to keep house and stock take the items that you have and will need shortly. To do this effectively consider using a digitized stock system so you can get an instant overview of what your levels are.

How to deliver?

It’s not just the incoming items that you need to be on top of but also you outgoing stock, and here where it can get a little tricky. Do you choose to deliver the products yourself, or use a delivery company to help you?

Well, first of all, consider your business model. Are you shipping individual products to individual clients, or are you freight shipping pallets of products to a single client for redistribution? This is important because it makes a difference on the type of logistics that you will need.

Freight

For example, if you are shipping pallet loads of stuff to one location then it likely that freight delivery is your best option. However, freight services can be expensive to run, especially if you are struggling with finance at the beginning of your startup journey.

Luckily there is firm that can help you with this specific problem. They supply freight bill factoring. Which is finance especially for large truck rigs. There are even lists of companies like the one from Factoring Directory that offer comparisons of the available financial services online. You can read more about Factoring Directory here. So even if the prohibitive cost is a problem, you can get help to make this side of your business work.

Private address deliveries

However, if you are looking to deliver to people’s homes then freight probably isn’t going to be the option for you. After all, it’s not very cost or time efficient to have a massive truck roll up outside someone’s house unless you hate to deliver a very large item. That is why it may be better for you startup to use a delivery company.

You send the deliveries to them, and then they get sorted in a collection centre and redistributed through the company’s network to be delivered to individual locations.

Of course, it’s worth doing homework here too, as there are good and bad delivery companies just like any other service that you pay for.