Harry Monk:
I sometimes get my own work from Guildford to Aberdeen and vice-versa and I charge £1,300.
prior 1998 Pontypool /inverness £1200 what the hell is the matter with haulage…
Yes, I completely agree Cliffy, I was earning more as an employee in the mid-1990s than I do now as an OO. Crazy, isn’t it, but that’s the way the job has gone. The worst thing ever to have happened to the UK road transport industry was when the Berlin Wall came down.
The worst thing to happen to the UK road transport industry was when owner operators who only want to make a living start quoting for jobs when they have no idea of their real costings.
£1300 for a load from Guildford to Aberdeen when it takes half a day to load & half a day to unload & given the delicate nature of the goods is a poor rate by anyone’s standards, I have over the months watched your posts Harry & you refer to this exhibition work as the jam on your bread & butter work of pulling trailers for a certain firm who are based in Devon, if your idea of jam is this then I’m glad I don’t have to run for your bread & butter rates.
Depending on the route you take we are talking of 1100 miles round trip, this equates to £1.18p per mile, put your fuel cost at £1.07p per litre or £4.85p per gallon +VAT, if you average 7.5 MPG then this equates to 147 gallons or £713 worth of fuel, over 50% of your outgoing rate on fuel alone, I appreciate the fact that your return load of water made your return journey a little more acceptable but what when you struggle to find a load back. The fact of the matter is, you have made a big hole in 4 if not 5 days for about 3 days money.
Now when you disappear off to cruise the canal network at 4 MPH no doubt someone will come along with equally big ideas about how to make a living out of being an owner operator but you are the very people who are keeping industry rates so low. I very often get asked for haulage rates for a rigid lorry and when I quote I am sometimes met with the answer “but we can get an artic for less than that”. The fact of the matter is a lot of people are happy to “have a go at being an owner operator for a bit” then realise it isn’t the golden goose they thought it would be as they don’t know how to work their costings out properly.
Niche market work should be charged out at niche market haulage rates, not general haulage rates that rely on a backload to make the trip break even let alone make a profit
1970commer:
£1300 for a load from Guildford to Aberdeen when it takes half a day to load & half a day to unload & given the delicate nature of the goods is a poor rate by anyone’s standards, I have over the months watched your posts Harry & you refer to this exhibition work as the jam on your bread & butter work of pulling trailers for a certain firm who are based in Devon, if your idea of jam is this then I’m glad I don’t have to run for your bread & butter rates.
Depending on the route you take we are talking of 1100 miles round trip, this equates to £1.18p per mile,
It would have been easier to have said “I’m not very good at maths”
£1,300 for a 550 mile trip is £2.36 a mile.
And £1,300 for bringing it back again is also £2.36 a mile.
1970commer:
£1300 for a load from Guildford to Aberdeen when it takes half a day to load & half a day to unload & given the delicate nature of the goods is a poor rate by anyone’s standards, I have over the months watched your posts Harry & you refer to this exhibition work as the jam on your bread & butter work of pulling trailers for a certain firm who are based in Devon, if your idea of jam is this then I’m glad I don’t have to run for your bread & butter rates.
Depending on the route you take we are talking of 1100 miles round trip, this equates to £1.18p per mile,
It would have been easier to have said “I’m not very good at maths”
£1,300 for a 550 mile trip is £2.36 a mile.
And £1,300 for bringing it back again is also £2.36 a mile.
You only take the load one way at a time, if you had to run back empty that equates to £1300 for 1100 miles, admittedly you brought water back from Blackford but I think we all know it doesn’t pay top dollar. As I said before, niche market work needs niche market haulage rates, I always quote a rate to a customer who wants that service as a dedicated round trip price, so to price your customer correctly, would be to work a rate out leaving Guildford, tipping Aberdeen then running back empty, if when you leave Aberdeen you get the chance to collect some water in bottles off the side of the A9 then this could be called the jam on your bread & butter.
1970commer:
£1300 for a load from Guildford to Aberdeen when it takes half a day to load & half a day to unload & given the delicate nature of the goods is a poor rate by anyone’s standards, I have over the months watched your posts Harry & you refer to this exhibition work as the jam on your bread & butter work of pulling trailers for a certain firm who are based in Devon, if your idea of jam is this then I’m glad I don’t have to run for your bread & butter rates.
Depending on the route you take we are talking of 1100 miles round trip, this equates to £1.18p per mile,
It would have been easier to have said “I’m not very good at maths”
£1,300 for a 550 mile trip is £2.36 a mile.
And £1,300 for bringing it back again is also £2.36 a mile.
You only take the load one way at a time, if you had to run back empty that equates to £1300 for 1100 miles, admittedly you brought water back from Blackford but I think we all know it doesn’t pay top dollar. As I said before, niche market work needs niche market haulage rates, I always quote a rate to a customer who wants that service as a dedicated round trip price, so to price your customer correctly, would be to work a rate out leaving Guildford, tipping Aberdeen then running back empty, if when you leave Aberdeen you get the chance to collect some water in bottles off the side of the A9 then this could be called the jam on your bread & butter.
1970commer:
as they don’t know how to work their costings out properly.
While I understand where you’re coming from I also think this is a little harsh.
Although the rate may be low, there’s still plenty scraping the barrel who would do it for less.
There’s also the other considerarion of competitors. Most customers are loyal 99% of the time. As soon as you let one down they look elsewhere. This goes one of 2 ways. Either your competitors balls it up which helps your customer then understand they are paying for quality of service and you can charge a bit more. The other option is they turn up and impress your customer and they then have a foot in the door. Maybe it’s better to take a slight hit on a job like this to keep your customer loyal for the other more local work which pays better rates.
Does that constitute a race to the bottom? I don’t think so. Harry is still happy this is viable without a backload. The bottom feeders are those that would cost this job DEPENDING on a backload to make it pay.
