Everything you need to know about delivery contracts

Do you want to tender for delivery contracts but are unsure where to start? The tendering process can be confusing for any industry. In the logistics industry, the delivery and courier service are expanding so it can be a competitive market. We’ve put together a guide on everything you need to know about delivery contracts.

How can I bid my courier business for work?

If you’re looking for some ways to distribute delivery contracts but unsure how to, we can help:

• Create a services list

You must know what kind of delivery service you can provide. For example, what type of transport will you use? A lorry, a van or a car? Think about the weight and size of the products you can carry. There’s no point telling people you can deliver a sofa if you only have a small car. You can offer additional services if you are able to handle fragile objects. Or are you able to provide a refrigerated truck for goods that need to stay chilled?  You need to make sure you can actually provide what you’re stating you can.

• Develop a fee structure

You need a guide to the fees you want to charge i.e., per mile. You need to know how much you need to bid to make a profit. Fees should vary depending on the type of delivery and local rates. You should think about whether you will incur additional charges. This could be based on the weight of the product or if you’re delivering out of hours.

• Contact potential local clients

With services and fees outlined you’re in a good position to start finding and bidding for delivery contracts. You could reach out to local businesses that may be in need of delivery drivers. These may include:

• Pharmacies that need medication delivered
• Delivering for the hospitality industry
• Legal businesses that may need paperwork delivering more quickly

How can I be successful with delivery contracts?

We’ve put together some tips to help you win your delivery contract bid.

1. Read the tender documents

Carefully read through the documents to understand exactly what the bid is asking of you. You will need to be sure you can definitely meet the requirements. Once you have read the tender documents you can decide whether the tender is for you or not.

2. Managing your journeys

As you’re providing a service that is transporting goods, you need a process for managing journeys. Think about:

• How will you coordinate your journeys?
• Will you use any technology to help with journeys?
• How is your system efficient and will it save you money?
• How will you deal with delays?

3. Provide evidence

 Providing evidence is key if you want to win a tender. It’s no point saying you can do ‘x, y and z’ if you have no way of backing it up. The buyer wants to see previous examples of how you’ve provided a similar service in the past. If you don’t back up what you’re saying, why should the buyer believe you? Seeing is believing.

4. Answer all the questions

Don’t leave any questions blank! This will not look good to the examiner. If you’re incapable of answering the question, how can you be capable of delivering the contract? Remember if a question requires a 500-word answer don’t answer it in two sentences. You won’t have answered the question in full. Answer the question in as much detail as you can.

5. Allow plenty of time

People often underestimate the amount of time it takes to write a tender and submit it. Not to mention the preparation work such as reading the tender documents or asking clarification questions. The last thing you want to do is rush the whole process and lose the bid. Make sure you put aside plenty of time to get everything completed on time.

6. Proofread

The final step to winning your delivery contract is to proofread. We often see people lose marks because they’ve submitted a bid that has spelling mistakes or grammatical error. This could have been avoided if they’d taken the time to proofread the document. Check your work multiple times as it can be easy to miss errors on a first skim through.

We recommend asking someone else to check over your work too. Having a second person review your work can help pick up any issues you may have missed. It’s good for someone else to read the document who wasn’t involved in writing it. Additionally, you may want to consider leaving a day or two in between making your final edit and proofread. This way you will have your own fresh pair of eyes to help spot any errors.

Transport Tenders

A subscription to Transport Tenders could increase your chances of securing delivery contracts. With time saved and numerous opportunities found, Transport Tenders can feed seamlessly into your business development strategy. With a subscription to the portal, you receive:

• Unlimited access to the Transport Tenders portal. Increase your chance of success.
• A dedicated Account Manager on hand to help you will any and all logistics tenders.
• A free 20-minute phone consultation. Chat to one of our team about a delivery contract you’re interested in. We can provide expert advice, insight and guidance to support your tendering efforts.
• A daily email bulletin of all the logistics tenders published that day helping you stay ahead of the game.

Transport Tenders is a time-saving tool that allows you to focus on running your business, while we source tendering opportunities, directly relevant to your service offering. It’s because we’re passionate about business growth. Every company should have the chance to succeed – and we know that Transport Tenders will fit perfectly into your business growth strategy.

On Transport Tenders, we post contracts for:

• Courier services;
• Public transport;
• Transport services;
• Logistical planning consultancy;
• Recycling logistics;
• School taxi contracts;
• Bus tenders;
• and supply chain solutions.

Book a free live demo today for a quick tour of our portal. Get in touch to learn more about our bespoke bid writing services.