Courier service business plan

What does the courier service do?

A courier service is a service organization that, at the request of a client, provides prompt delivery of letters, documents, and small-sized cargo for a fee. Depending on the scale of work, the courier service delivers cargo and correspondence:

• between countries;
• between cities and regions;
• within one city.

It is also customary to subdivide services depending on the type of goods being moved. Conventionally, we can distinguish 2 major areas of work of the service:

• correspondence;
• cargo.

In practice, most companies working in this area are mixed: they provide clients with services for both the delivery of correspondence and the delivery of goods.

Clients

Courier services are used by both individuals and organizations. At the start, it is advisable not to strive to reach as large an audience as possible, but to concentrate on the main areas:

• online stores that do not have a courier service;
• companies with several branches in one city;
• restaurants, cafes, bistros;
• flower shops;
• publishing houses;
• bookstores;
• grocery stores;
• private individuals.

Courier service

In the process of work, other more profitable directions may appear, and some, on the contrary, will have to be abandoned.

Courier service and legislation

Opening a courier service involves obtaining a license to provide communication services. The license is issued for a period of 5 years and allows the entrepreneur with peace of mind to provide delivery services on a reimbursable basis during the specified period.

To obtain the appropriate license, an entrepreneur must contact Roskomnadzor with an application and a list of documents established by law, on the basis of which, after 30 days, the applicant is issued a license. Please note that when applying for a license, you must pay a state fee in the amount of 2,600 rubles.

Organizational preparation for the implementation of a business plan for a courier delivery service

Any business requires careful preparation, which consists of carrying out all legal, registration and organizational actions to legalize and optimize all processes of the future company as part of the courier delivery service business plan :

1. Company formation and registration.
2. Registration with the tax office and conclusion of an agreement with the bank for settlement and cash services.
3. Choosing a suitable office space.
4. Determining sources of staff formation and measures to prevent their turnover.
5. Studying the features of licensing and permitting state regulation.
6. Estimation of the cost of various sources of financing.

What do you need to open a courier service?

Before registering and licensing your business, you need to choose a specialization and decide whether you will deal only with correspondence/cargo or plan to offer both services to clients. To help you decide, we have compiled comparative characteristics for both areas of the service in Table 1.

Table 1. Comparison of areas of work of the courier service

For a beginner in this industry and in business in general, we recommend starting work with the delivery of correspondence and small-sized cargo around the city. Starting in this direction will cost much less and will begin to bring you profits faster. In the future, you will be able to supplement the smooth operation of your own project with a cargo delivery service and expand the geography of deliveries.

Structure of a business plan for an enterprise in the field of courier service

the following sections need to be specified in the investment project of the courier service

• integrated market analysis, with an assessment of the existing and future dynamics of industry trends;
• investment support for the project;
• technological stages and equipment composition;
• operating expenses plan;
• the profitable part of the investment project;
• wage fund and required number of employees;
• marketing and sales of services;
• time frame for the project to reach self-sufficiency.

Office

An office for a courier service does not have to be rented in the most expensive buildings in the city. For the client, what is most important is how quickly the courier can deliver the order and how much your service will cost the client. Therefore, the ideal office space is 20 square meters. m of area with Internet and telephony at a distance from the city center. It is advisable to have a couple of parking spaces and a convenient access road in front of the office.

In the office, it is enough to equip 1 workplace for a manager who will search for clients, distribute tasks between couriers and control deadlines and payments. The furnishings of the room will consist of the following furniture and equipment:

• working surface,
• chair,
• computer,
• Printer,
• telephone,
• rack.

Don't forget to buy office supplies: pens, paper, sticky notes, paper clips, scissors, tape, etc.

Income and expenses

Starting infusions

The profitability of a business depends, first of all, on the size of the starting investment. This segment is different in that it will require large cash injections only for marketing; other costs will be insignificant.

Let's list the starting costs in the table:

It turns out that an entrepreneur must have an amount of 83 thousand rubles in order to start this business. It is possible to reduce costs by reducing marketing costs, but it is important to consider the market realities in a particular region. Offering a low level of service and automation will not attract serious customers. But with online stores that sell 3-4 products per month in your region, you won’t earn much.

Monthly infusions

Every month you will need to spend a certain amount of money to maintain the business. In the table below we will look at what exactly the finances will be spent on and indicate the approximate cost:

We see that the resulting figure is 75 thousand rubles.

Income

The main point for an entrepreneur is, of course, profit. Therefore, all we have left to talk about is what kind of profitability this business has and how quickly the investments made can be justified. One order costs on average 300 rubles. If we serve 20 clients a day, then in a month with 24 working days we get 144 thousand rubles.

But this is not yet net profit, because the tax base and monthly expenses must be subtracted from it. Thus, the entrepreneur will have approximately 70 thousand rubles left.

Profitability will be about 100%, but profitability depends on the number of orders and couriers. The more there are, the better. For a business to be truly profitable, you need at least 5 couriers and 100 deliveries per day.

Purchasing your own transport has a positive effect on profitability. The use of personal transport of employees, firstly, is less reliable, and secondly, it costs approximately twice as much.

Scheme of work

Before moving on to personnel selection, it is necessary to draw up step-by-step instructions for the operation of the service and define responsibilities. For each employee, you will determine an individual work plan and job responsibilities, but the general order processing scheme is as follows:

1. An order is received from the client, which is recorded in the office.
2. The manager tells the client the amount of payment, records the names and telephone numbers of contact persons, and then draws up a task for the courier.
3. The courier, according to the assignment, goes to point A, picks up the correspondence and payment, takes it to point B, where the person receiving the envelope signs the acceptance certificate, confirming the receipt of the envelope.
4. The courier calls the manager, who in turn notifies the customer that the addressee has received the envelope.
5. At the end of the day, the couriers hand over the signed documents and proceeds to the manager.

This scheme is not the only true and correct one; you can always refine it by expanding or reducing the number of stages.

Personnel and payment

To operate a courier service at the stage of formation and promotion with a 2/2 schedule, only 6 people will be needed, of which four are couriers, two are managers.

Despite the fact that you are engaged in the delivery of small-sized cargo and correspondence and do not have your own fleet of vehicles, we recommend that you hire couriers with a personal car. In this case, in addition to wages, the courier will need to be paid compensation for using a personal car for work purposes. In the future, it is more profitable to maintain your own fleet of vehicles, but to do this you still need to earn money. If you notice that there are not enough couriers, start recruiting additional employees.

For managers, it is advisable to establish a fixed salary and an incentive bonus based on the results of office work for the month.

Staff

For the full functioning of the delivery service, several people will be required. This is a dispatcher who will accept applications and communicate with clients, 2 couriers whose task is to deliver parcels, and an advertising manager. There will be little delivery of large cargo at the first stage; it will be easier to subcontract such costs.

Let's look at the table with the workers' wage fund:

It turns out that every month an entrepreneur needs to give his employees 60 thousand rubles. You may also need an accountant who will make reports for regulatory authorities and maintain document flow. Its functions can be taken over by an entrepreneur or hired by an employee remotely. An accountant working remotely will charge about 2 thousand rubles for his work.

Investments

The points presented in the article are essentially a simplified business plan that will serve as a practical guide for you when opening a courier service at your own expense. But if you use borrowed funds, then a business plan must be drawn up according to general requirements using an established structure.

Let's calculate how much it costs to open a courier service from scratch and display the data in Table 2.

Table 2. Calculation of initial investment

Thus, you will spend less than 150,000 rubles to open a courier service.

Business plan for a courier service as a way to design the company’s activities

In order to create a truly effective and working description of entrepreneurship in the chosen field, professional skills in the field of planning and marketing analysis are needed. It will also be necessary to carry out a large amount of work on collecting data, structuring it and formulating appropriate conclusions. To optimize development processes, we use a courier service business plan.
It is clearly structured, and each part is responsible for its own section of the project, analytical, financial or practical. There is a large number of developments in this area and a huge amount of information on the Internet, which allows you to understand the features of design, if you have the appropriate amount of free time, since there are many specific points in this area, and they all require study.

Profit or loss?

Like any business project, the personnel service has an estimated payback period. The return on invested capital in this industry takes from six months to two years and directly depends on effective promotion. After the initial costs have been recouped, the profitability of the courier service, according to some estimates, ranges from 80 to 120%.

Whether it is profitable to open a courier service or not - the answer to the question depends only on your efforts and expectations. For some, it’s profitable - it’s 100 rubles for every 50 invested, but for others, even 1000 for 10 rubles seems not enough.

Calculation of financial and economic indicators of a business plan for investing in a courier service

Current monthly expenses

An approximate list of operating expenses items necessary for the normal functioning of the company within the framework of investment plan for a courier service :

• payment of the cost of rent and consumed utilities - XXX rub.;
• purchase of necessary consumables and stationery – XXX rub.;
• settlements with contractors – XXX rub.;
• transportation costs – XXX rub.;
• depreciation charges - XXX rub.;
• advertising costs - XXX rub.;
• salary – XXX rub.;
• tax payments – XXX rub.

The total amount of monthly operating expenses will be RUB XXX.

Profitable part of the courier service investment project

To determine the volume of revenue from sales, the courier service business plan calculates the number of services provided per month, multiplied by the cost of one service. Factors influencing the amount of demand and their management are also important:

• range and price of services;
• quality and delivery times;
• ratings received from recipients of goods and notifications.

Split sales of services, by type of delivery:

1. Products – XXX rub.
2. Correspondence (letters and notifications) – XXX rub.
3. Products from online stores – XXX rub.

In total, monthly revenue from the sale of services will amount to XXX rubles.

Personnel and wage fund

The specific nature of the activity in the chosen field requires a large number of delivery workers, who are characterized by high turnover and parallel part-time work in other fields. To ensure delivery quality indicators within the framework of the courier service , you need to carefully consider the system of material and non-material motivation.

Staff structure:

• director - XXX rub.;
• accounting - XXX rub.;
• personnel management service - XXX rub.;
• Marketing and Sales Department – ​​XXX rub.;
• dispatch service - XXX rub.;
• couriers – XXX rub.;
• service quality specialist – XXX rub.;
• cleaners and other service personnel – XXX rub.

Alternative option

There is another option for starting a courier service - franchising. Franchising gives an entrepreneur the opportunity to work for a fee under the well-known name of an existing courier service, using ready-made tools and a work plan. By purchasing a franchise, an entrepreneur does not get rid of other initial expenses, so opening a courier service under this scheme will cost him many times more.

But, despite the high cost, the franchise is very popular among entrepreneurs because it offers a ready-made solution and does not require modification.