Serial entrepreneurs, Steve Blank and Bob Dorf define a startup company as, “organisation formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.”
For a startup company every little plan and step is a challenge and a severe accomplishment.
They have to maintain a healthy and tight cash flow, at the same time worry about unforeseen monthly expenses.
Apart from their preliminary concerns of reducing premise costs, lightening the payroll by hiring freelancers and evaluating at hyper-regular intervals, a startup has to watch out at all times. In fact, it has to be way ahead of time, if it wants to be seen itself as the next big thing in its niche. Because, after all, no startup wants to remain a startup. Their ultimate objective is to be big, and expand into newer horizons.
A large chunk of the startups are e-retailers. They have a considerable number of deliveries to fulfill on a regular basis. Like big e-retailers, they cannot have the advantage of having their own logistics or partner with prime logistics partners.
Every decision for a startup boils down to two things
1) how cost-effective is this and
2) how efficient is that
Before you make that call on choosing that perfect carrier partner, some of the things you need to look into would be:
– are you serving a local or international audience
– are your products curated or sourced
– do your goods have a short shelf life or long shelf life
– are your offerings bound by time (like wedding cakes, gowns, tuxedo rentals, etc.)
– how big or how small are your packages
1. Nothing can be as warm as mother tongue: Only a local can understand a local. If all your deliveries are made to a certain local audience, like your own city and state, you can scout for a logistics partner who knows the area like no other. FedEx and BlueDart might be big on the outside, but when it comes to your land, see who knows it best. At the same time, if you are serving an audience base that is all over the country, then look up who your similar competition has hired for their deliveries.
2. Muscle matters: If you are curating all products and services you offer, then a simple pick up and drop off carrier partner is good enough. But if what you have requires extensive pick up from here and there from multiple vendors, then you need a strong and flexible logistics chain, who can also update their status in real-time. So the logistics chain muscle is something you have got to consider.
3. It is an exquisite world: Some things require less care, and then there are some things that require more. If you have perishable goods to deliver, it is recommended you check the bandwidth of the storage facilities of the carrier partner. Can the courier guys carefully and gracefully deliver your products in the required state?
4. Time is everything: If we are not bound by time, we are doomed. Time-bound services like wedding cakes, tuxedo rentals need to reach on time. Else a couple won’t be able to say ‘I Do’. Look for the past record of the logistics partner, how efficient they have been in delivering on time.
5. Happiness comes in all sizes: But it is not so with carrier companies. With dimensional weight pricing pulling your costs down to the abyss, you need to keep a keen eye and see what kind of packaging and courier tariff – suit you the best
