Logistics is a huge industry and there are a lot of great business opportunities both locally and internationally. We are shipping more products than ever as online shopping takes over traditional retail, so there is a lot of money to be made in the industry. If you are looking for a business to start, you should consider starting your own transport company. 

There are a number of different options that you could look into. For example, you could start a local courier company and do small deliveries, or you could think big and start an international haulage company. Whatever kind of transport company you decide to start, there are some specific challenges that you will need to overcome. These are some of the most important things to keep in mind when starting your own transport business. 

Source The Right Vehicles 

The first thing that you need for any business is some vehicles. Finding trucks for your business is harder than people might realize because you need to ensure that you choose reliable vehicles that are cost-effective to run. It’s important that you try to balance the initial cost with the long term running costs of the vehicles. For example, it’s a lot cheaper to run a fleet of electric vehicles, but they will be far more expensive to buy in the first place. When choosing vehicles, make sure to consider the repair and maintenance costs and consider buying used vehicles to start with, so you can save some money. 

Maintain Safety 

Safety is very important in the logistics and transport industry, and as a business owner, it’s up to you to make sure that standards are met. In some industries, there are strict health check regulations that need to be met. For example, anybody that is working on trains needs to pass a rail medical cat 3 before they are clear to work. In the haulage industry, it’s important that all drivers have the correct licenses and don’t have any prior infractions. It’s so important that you don’t cut corners with safety because, if a driver is involved in a crash and you didn’t take the right steps to improve safety, you could be held liable and the business could be sued. 

Get The Right Insurance 

Insurance is vital, especially if you are delivering products on behalf of retailers. If products are broken in transit and need to be replaced, you don’t want that cost to come out of your pocket. Asking retailers to make sure that their products are packaged well and ensuring that your drivers are sensible will reduce breakages, but they are always going to happen. You need good insurance coverage so you can manage the cost of broken items. You also need to get the right insurance coverage for all of your vehicles. Even if you hire the best possible drivers, you cannot control the actions of other drivers on the road, and accidents are always a possibility. 

As long as you follow these tips, your new transport and logistics business will be a huge success. 

Do you need to hire cars as well as trucks?

You may not only need trucks if starting a transport business. Suppose it is a business that transports small goods and is based in a local town, you may need to look at investing in a vehicle fleet or a single business car. For this you may want to look at a business car lease.

To acquire a vehicle or a fleet of vehicles, companies have different financing possibilities: cash or credit purchase or rental (long term or leasing). To meet the needs and situation of each company, an ideal financing method exists. This formula is often assimilated to Rental with Purchase Option or LOA, which is however reserved for private clients. In practice, the company chooses a vehicle and asks a credit institution to buy and lease it – the options are many and you should thoroughly research what you want. The owner therefore owes monthly payments to the lender throughout the term of the lease. The latter is the owner of the vehicle until the end of the contract. At this time, the lessee can purchase the vehicle by paying the residual value, which has the advantage of being low compared to the market value of the car. This will certainly add even more value to your company in the long run and can make a huge impact. Suppose that your rented car has your company logo on the side, it is also contributing to marketing purposes as it drives around town.