Reptile couriers

[smithson]

Hi all
a mate of mine wants to no with all this crap that's going on
with aae how hard will it be to start a reptile courier up
do you think ppl will go for this?
To start it willbe a vic to nsw every2weeks and melb to sa weekly if all good qld monthly?
What do you ppl think ?
Cheers

 

[whyme]

I think it would be great if he could get past all the legals, have lots of vans, a depot, maybe a plane, somewhere to park it, computers, phones, and last, but not least, reliable employee's. Seriously though, if he could cover fuel costs, accomodation, etc, etc, and walk out weekly with enough coin in his pocket, might be worth a shot as a side project. And dont forget insurance!!

 

[smithson]

I think it would be great if he could get past all the legals, have lots of vans, a depot, maybe a plane, somewhere to park it, computers, phones, and last, but not least, reliable employee's. Seriously though, if he could cover fuel costs, accomodation, etc, etc, and walk out weekly with enough coin in his pocket, might be worth a shot as a side project. And dont forget insurance!!

Hi mate
what type of insurance will he need
he has a van that will have a heated floor
and he has a bit of coin to start and no need for
accomodation he will drive there and back after drop
off

 

[junglelove]

i think it would be ok if they arent close to an airport. its pretty cheap to fly them. i was going to fly 4x snakes estimated 10 -15kgs i think (from adelaide to brisbane) and it was going to be $290. it would only take about 2hrs on the plane a few hours waiting. so same day arrival.
i would have had to drive about two hrs to get to bris airport though
instead im driving with them sa to qld i go about 500ks on a tank spending between $70 - $80 to fill up and by the time i get to destination it will be 5days in the car.
he would have to think is it worth the drives and then petrol cost wear and tear on the car. i wouldnt worry about the heated floor id worry more about over heating!!
but good luck with it - i hope that kinda helped

 

[AaronR]

Insurane would be a killer public liability, professional imdemnaty car insurance and work cover costs just to name a few. However if you get 5+ customers per trip them yeah maybe it could work but. A decent amount of $$$$ to start up.

 

[smithson]

i think it would be ok if they arent close to an airport. its pretty cheap to fly them. i was going to fly 4x snakes estimated 10 -15kgs i think (from adelaide to brisbane) and it was going to be $290. it would only take about 2hrs on the plane a few hours waiting. so same day arrival.
i would have had to drive about two hrs to get to bris airport though
instead im driving with them sa to qld i go about 500ks on a tank spending between $70 - $80 to fill up and by the time i get to destination it will be 5days in the car.
he would have to think is it worth the drives and then petrol cost wear and tear on the car. i wouldnt worry about the heated floor id worry more about over heating!!
but good luck with it - i hope that kinda helped

Thanks for that and he will do it wen he has 10 or so pythons lizards
snake
cheers

Insurane would be a killer public liability, professional imdemnaty car insurance and work cover costs just to name a few. However if you get 5+ customers per trip them yeah maybe it could work but. A decent amount of $$$$ to start up.

Ok well he's a courier by trade so am pritty shaw he will
have most if not all of that

 

[Belv6]

the positive is you get your reptile delivered to your door, he would have to get mobile numbers of the recipient as well as what would he do if the person is not home and his driven all the way to sydney + if he say has 10 different orders he has to deliver to sydney and they are scattered all over sydney he would be using a lot of petrol driving from melb to sydney then all over sydney delivering them and if he cant do it all in one day he would have to pay for his own accommodation as well and then how would the animals stay at a good temperature over night as well, he has a lot of things to think about but it could work if he builds up the numbers per run and he builds a good reputation with breeders as well?

 

[GeckoJosh]

AAE isnt the only courier....

 

[Nathan_T]

i think it would be ok if they arent close to an airport. its pretty cheap to fly them. i was going to fly 4x snakes estimated 10 -15kgs i think (from adelaide to brisbane) and it was going to be $290. it would only take about 2hrs on the plane a few hours waiting. so same day arrival.
i would have had to drive about two hrs to get to bris airport though
instead im driving with them sa to qld i go about 500ks on a tank spending between $70 - $80 to fill up and by the time i get to destination it will be 5days in the car.
he would have to think is it worth the drives and then petrol cost wear and tear on the car. i wouldnt worry about the heated floor id worry more about over heating!!
but good luck with it - i hope that kinda helped

While your friend can do whatever he wants, I'd suggest this post points out why it's not going to be a great idea. Say I need my snakes shipped from Brisbane to Adelaide, and it costs $290 to fly them.

If you're driving, that's probably over 24 hours driving time. Let's leave it at 24 for calculations. $290 comes out to $12 per hour raw income, not including expenses. You would earn better money at McDonalds. Conservatively, I'd say 1/2 of that $290 would be expenses.

Now, I don't know about courier drivers, but truck drivers are only allowed to drive 12 hours in a day (I think). So you're going to do the 24 hour trip in 2 days minimum, likely 3. What that means is you have to price your business to compete with same day airport delivery. Now, that's for each customer to decide, but I'm sure I'd not pay near 300 bucks for a 3-4 day delivery turn around. Another problem is that if you can't arrange delivery that day, you're going to need to find accommodation for 1 night, as again I'm damn sure as a customer my reptiles aren't going to be left on my porch all day, which eats into your profits further.

A possible way to counteract this would be to wait till you have multiple deliveries to make, for example if you've got 10 deliveries to make, 2900 bucks isn't a bad profit, but you need to remember that blowing out your delivery times further isn't going to look good for customers, I suppose it's up to your friend to do the market research to see how many deliveries he'd have to make and whether the market is strong enough to support that.

 

[tangy1]

What has been going on with AAE?

 

[wokka]

There is already 1000s of couriers operating all over Australia. I doubt that a reptile specialist would survive financially. Ask hobbo. He tried for a couple of years and then stopped. Whilst there are a lot more reptiles around now there is less need to transport as they are normally available locally.

 

[dragonlover1]

Although it's good to try and think up new opportunities ,I have to say I don't think it would be financially viable:-too large an area to cover and not enough reptiles.

 

[Belv6]

the service we have in aus is absolutely crap we need couriers that can deliver door to door or relatively near by, taking a day off work and standing around an airport for hours on end and hoping it comes on the next flight and hopefully some incompetent people might not lose your reptile or crush it

 

[GeckoJosh]

the service we have in aus is absolutely crap we need couriers that can deliver door to door or relatively near by, taking a day off work and standing around an airport for hours on end and hoping it comes on the next flight and hopefully some incompetent people might not lose your reptile or crush it

We do have door to door couriers

 

[Belv6]

well instead of making Smart Alec one line comments all the time how about you contribute something ? links ? past experiences ?

 

[smithson]

Thanks for all your replys I will pass this all on to
my mate
cheers