Firewood delivery costs.

[Alycidon]

I am just starting my third season in firewood. In order to establish some busiiness I have not in the past charged for delivery, however with a new Landrover Discovery costing £1.25 a mile to run ( ref Fleet News) without the trailer then this must change. Mine is an old dog Disco 2 though, not a lot of depreciation but some repairs as you might expect.

 

I envisiage 10 mile radius free delivery then so much a mile over that ( got to go there and back !!) . As my reputation for quality is rapidly spreading I am starting to get calls from 40 miles plus away. Thing is pallet rates using carriers are about £40 so over 30 miles it will be cheaper to use a carrier, but then I loose my bag and pallet. My current wood trailer holds 2 x 1 cube bags, I probably need one to take four bags and do a milk round run.

 

So what do you chaps do selling logs at 30 + miles away ?, if you charge for delivery how much per mile?.

 

Thanks

 

A

[Woodworks]

We have only been selling for 3 years much like yourself. We do the local postcode and nearest town for free and ask that people outside this area call for price. I would not deliver 30 miles from home but we can only do 1.5m3 at a time and we are not selling vast amounts each winter so we can afford to be picky because we know we will sell out.

[gensetsteve]

I am just starting my third season in firewood. In order to establish some busiiness I have not in the past charged for delivery, however with a new Landrover Discovery costing £1.25 a mile to run ( ref Fleet News) without the trailer then this must change. Mine is an old dog Disco 2 though, not a lot of depreciation but some repairs as you might expect.

 

I envisiage 10 mile radius free delivery then so much a mile over that ( got to go there and back !!) . As my reputation for quality is rapidly spreading I am starting to get calls from 40 miles plus away. Thing is pallet rates using carriers are about £40 so over 30 miles it will be cheaper to use a carrier, but then I loose my bag and pallet. My current wood trailer holds 2 x 1 cube bags, I probably need one to take four bags and do a milk round run.

 

So what do you chaps do selling logs at 30 + miles away ?, if you charge for delivery how much per mile?.

 

Thanks

 

We found delivering over 10 miles killed the job and as has been said if you are going to sell out may as well do it on the door step rather than work for nothing and kill someone elses patch. If I send 80 bags of kindling on a pallet I have to charge £80 to cover the pallet, film, time, loading and courier. If you deliver 30 miles away thats half a morning gone how many bags could you make and deliver a mile up the road. If you go the pallet route a full pallet can be 2 tonnes and 2 metres high so would pay to send out more at a time for similar money. If I cost an unskilled job I price it at £25 an hr unless we are quiet most work I charge at £39 and sometimes we can earn £150 on priced jobs so £10 an hr firewood takes a back seat.

[davetaz]

Free delivery up to 5 miles (min 1 cube) and then add on extra charges depending how far it is and how long it will take.

If some one wants a price for a cube to be delivered 20 miles away I explain it is £30 more due to transport costs and an hour of my time for the round trip. They usually don't call back to place an order, which is fine as we always sell out.

Longer delivery trips are a pain and the extra charges should probably be even more.

We do have one customer 22 miles away but they buy 4 cube a year at £110/cube plus £15 for the delivery - they struggle to get dry seasoned 18" logs from anywhere else

[baz]

I deliver free within 3 miles bagged logs on my telehandler forks.

 

I use a courier for anything further. They are £20 for county deliveries and £40 for UK deliveries. Price is for the drop and not by the bag. I don't know when they start adding a bag premium but its somewhere above 2.

 

I defy anyone to deliver within county themselves for under £20 including their own time. It comes down to do you want the cost of equipment to do deliveries (truck and trailer) with running costs, insurance costs, maintenance cost and depreciation and then lose a lot of your time running the logs around? For me £20 is a bargain so I charge customers £40 for arranging it for them.

[gensetsteve]

I think there is someone in our area currently selling 3 cu metres for £140 so until they run out I may aswell top up my tan and save my diesel. The test valley is a wealthy area as well, madness . Mind you it could be a nice green mix of pop and conny.

[tree monkey]

we just tell them a price dont mention any extras it puts people off so its included in the price i have regular customers that keep me going and burn a lot myself.

[farmer_ben]

i try to keep everyone happen, if i have someone phone up well out of my normal delivery area I will take their number and then if I ever go that way for another job or other reasons i give them a bell and see if they want any wood. i dont normally make a special trip for firewood over 8 miles. and if i do i either only offer my biggest load to make it worth my while or fit the delivery in with another close by. I can take 3 cube out at a time which helps.

[nick channer]

we reguarly go well over 20 miles from base... 4 loads at time on transit... dont think you can tell the customer your charging extra for delivery just price the load accordingly...

[gensetsteve]

If your vat registered it pays not to charge delivery as logs are 5% and delivery is 20% . We deliver all our logs free.