Couriers travel in their local area, across the UK or even internationally so you’ll want to think about your delivery radius and the maximum distances that you’re prepared to travel.
When you’ve chosen the range of services that you want to offer you’ll need an appropriately sized vehicle, with a valid MOT and insurance, to enable you to deliver the services that you want to provide.
You don’t need any specific qualifications to become a self-employed courier other than having a sound knowledge of the geographical area that you will be working in. Knowing the local roads will be a great advantage to saving you time and reducing late deliveries. A clean licence and no criminal records are expected as standard, and you are responsible for ensuring that you have the correct licences and correct insurance for the area of courier work that you want to do.
A courier needs to be well organised and have good time management which will be essential for the day-to-day tasks: planning your routes, pre-empting potential delays and maintaining delivery schedules so that your clients receive their items on time.
You must be able to keep records properly. This includes a reliable system that enables you to keep track of your collection, deliveries and packages. You will also need some accounting software to handle your invoicing and incoming payments. Don’t forget proof of delivery; how are you going to manage that and keep records in case of disputes?
Are you of good health? Being a self-employed courier is a physically demanding job with lots of walking, bending, and heavy lifting. If you get ill and have to take time away from your business, what’s your backup plan?
You need to enjoy driving most of the day, often alone. At the same time, you’ll need to be customer focused and be friendly and interactive with your customer when you arrive at the delivery destination. If they like you and the service that you provide, then they will book with you again!
Once you’re set up and have all the tools to be a self-employed courier you need to decide if you want to set up your own courier business or be a freelancer. Then you’ll need to find lots of customers and lots of courier work to get you started. Being self-employed, this is down to you and is not always easy. Courier Market can help you to create your own income without the worry of how to fill those empty backloads or quiet days! We have a transport exchange app that connects you, for free, to other couriers, owner drivers and courier companies all looking to out-source their overflow of courier work. You input your available times, vehicle size and locations into the smart matching system to receive notifications of jobs that you can take. Regular users review each other’s work and build up their reputations between each other to encourage repeat business.
There are lots of available courier work jobs waiting for you to book on our Courier Market transport exchange platform.
Download our app on Apple store or Google Play. It’s free to join and free to use!