Courier

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Courier (disambiguation).

A courier is a person or company that delivers packages and mail, often between offices and generally in a shorter timescale than surface mail. In cities, there are often bicycle couriers or motorcycle couriers but most couriers today use trucks and aircraft.

The number of jobs for couriers is projected to decrease over the next 5 to 10 years.^{[citation needed]} The number of packages being delivered is increasing, but technology is creating efficiencies for the delivery companies that are reducing the number of employees required to deliver each package.^{[citation needed]} There are many courier enterprises. The world's largest courier company is UPS followed by FedEx and DHL. eCourier, which uses cutting edge GPS, mobile computing and automated fleet management, is considered a next-generation courier company.

Owner Drivers operate alone or in small groups, covering both regular routes and often 'overflow' work from larger courier companies and major integrators. In the UK work is often traded between owner drivers on forums such as Link4Couriers.com to reduce 'dead miles' (i.e. not having an empty van on the return trip). Other systems such as MTvan.com have been designed to offer extra work to help build a more profitable day - tools such as 'real-time signatures' help owner drivers meet the proof of delivery requirements set by large courier companies and therefore also cover work for them.

1 Sameday couriers
2 See also
3 External links

[edit] Sameday couriers

Sameday or expedited courier services deliver in less than 24 hours and is an integral part of any modern economy. There are roughly seven thousand courier companies in the United States that make up this multi-billion dollar sector. The business model for the courier industry is particularly dependent on independent contractors - Infact, the MCAA estimates that 50-65% of U.S. courier companies use IC's to make deliveries in addition to their own dedicated employee resources. The nature of the industry, with its on-demand, often unscheduled delivery model, requires a varying number of courier drivers on any given day and time of day to complete a set service. However this business model is under threat from IRS Reclassification where IC's are being recategorized as W-2 employees. This reclassification typically results in fines being imposed on the offending courier company.

Many expedited courier companies are regional, small businesses, which can also provide additional services such as logistics management, archive warehousing, messenger centers, outsourced mailroom services and coordinated airfreight forwarding delivery services.

In the UK, most of the couriers or despatch riders were motorcyclists when the sameday delivery business started to show up in London. These tended to evolved from taxi companies but soon regional courier companies were popping up throughout the country. In the early 1990s the number of motorcycle couriers had reduced, they had almost been priced out of the market by insurance company premiums rising disproportionately for motorcyclists.^{[citation needed]} Except for the metropolitan areas most of the sameday couriers throughout the country now use small vans to do deliveries.

[edit] Customers

These couriers specialize in delivering important or sensitive packages that need to be received in the local area; and/or because of time and temperature concerns, such as organs for transplant or key equipment or parts that are necessary for day to day operations. While most companies use courier services certain industries depend on couriers on a daily basis. Biomedical labs need samples for testing and evaluation, manufacturing industry require parts to keep their plants operating smoothly, financial institutions transfer multiple documents every day between branches and processing centers, law firms must deliver confidential signatured documents on very strict deadlines for court filings and pharmaceutical distributors use couriers to transport medications to hospitals and nursing homes.

Even two-day delivery services use courier firms. Items that are mis-sorted, forgotten or just not picked up on a larger couriers route. When a mistake has been discovered, courier firms fill in the gap and ensure packages are delivered on time.

[edit] Competition

Courier firms provide an invaluable service because the "big four" (DHL, UPS, FedEx and USPS) in the delivery business simply do not provide same-day delivery services uniquely designed to meet specific individual customer needs. Expedited delivery firms also prevent the big four from having a complete monopoly on deliveries that must be completed in a short period of time. This competition, both among couriers and with the big four, has greatly increased the quality and professionalism of the industry, while also ensuring reasonable rates for customers. These 7,000 plus small businesses also help to keep the pricing competitive and the big four honest. Additionally, the courier industry consists almost entirely of small, locally owned and operated businesses, ensuring that revenue is retained within the community served, rather than siphoned off by a multi-national corporation.

[edit] History in the United States

The courier industry has long held an important place in United States commerce and been involved in pivotal moments in the nation's history such as westward migration and the gold rush. Wells Fargo was founded in 1852 and rapidly became the preeminent package delivery company. The company specialized in shipping gold, packages and newspapers throughout the West, making a Wells Fargo office in every camp and settlement a necessity for commerce and connections to home.

Shortly afterward, the Pony Express was established to move packages more quickly than the traditional method, which followed the stagecoach routes. The success of efficient deliveries on the Pony Express route has been credited with keeping California in the Union during the American Civil War. It also illustrated the demand for timely deliveries across the nation, a concept that continued to evolve with the railroads, automobiles and interstate highways and that has emerged into today’s courier industry.