Autumn 2008

A web-based delivery service targeting users such as people selling via auction web sites has been launched by a former courier, David Brown, under the name ukbackloads.com. He has built the system in association with IT specialist Gareth Hoyle.

In some ways the service is like an online freight exchange, but one focusing specifically on non-urgent 'smalls' traffic. The idea is that items sold online on a 'collect only' basis can be posted on the site as potential return loads (access is free to shippers), and then carriers or couriers can pick them off when they have capacity in the right freight corridor.

Couriers pay a flat periodic fee for access to the service – a model that other exchanges have found more popular than the percentage approach taken by early exchanges. Prices start at £12.50 a month. Mobile users will be able to log on remotely via handheld devices.

Brown sees the service as having the potential to unlock new sales on auction sites such as eBay. 'At any given time it is estimated that there are about 950,000 items listed for sale on eBay as *collection only' because of size, weight, high value or similar factors,' he says. But the problems of collecting such items discourages potential shoppers from bidding, he adds, so a workable delivery service could stimulate more active bidding.

 

The service is designed to help couriers find backloads, which he says is often difficult because of the last-minute nature of their business. The site aims to encourage shippers to charge affordable backload rates, and includes a calculator to suggest what those rates should be, though Brown emphasises that individual couriers can negotiate their own prices with each shipper.

He says he envisages a situation where some couriers might even hold goods they have collected in store for a few days until they can offer an economic final delivery, perhaps consolidating several items on a single local journey.

Certain carriers have previously made a speciality of targeting eBay business – the most successful probably being Parcel2Go – but the introduction of the freight exchange element adds a new twist to the concept. The key to success will no doubt be building up market awareness in the target marketplace.

It's early days, but Brown says he aims to have at least 1,500 jobs available on the site at any one time within a year, and to have 1,000 couriers on its books.