The past year has been a catalyst for various economic forces. Undeniably, one such change has been seen in how customers now expect to receive the goods and services they purchase. Inevitably, customers no longer go to businesses, businesses are traveling to their customers.
The hospitality sector exemplifies this new ‘Delivery Economy’ perfectly: as a result of the heavy restrictions on UK restaurants and bars, 1 in 6 Brits are now considered to be “active users” in the food delivery market.
With a growing number of businesses now expected to deliver to customers’ homes, it is important for those same businesses to start considering how they should best deliver their good and services. It is time for businesses to look at the fleet that is making those deliveries and ask if it and its running costs can be optimised.
This is particularly prudent when more than 80% of customers, who are expecting a delivery, consider “free delivery and being kept informed about their delivery” to be the highest priority.
Optimising your fleet
Some businesses now delivering to customers have had a harder time than others, especially smaller-sized businesses that may not have the experience or resources (like a full-time fleet manager) to optimise their fleet’s processes. Other businesses may not even realise that ‘fleet optimisation’ is possible and that there is money to be saved if they are delivering to customers.
That’s why Vimcar, a German-based fleet tracking company, has now launched a free online toolkit, aimed at small to medium-sized UK businesses to help them optimise their fleet and their fleet costs.
Their toolkit, named Fleet Assets, contains various guides, templates and tax calculators to help smaller fleets save money – whether they are facing pressure from high delivery demands or simply want to find a way to save.
A guide on how to save fleet fuel is outlined below. Seeing as fuel makes up 25% of all fleet costs, on average, some of the steps outlined below could prove very valuable (especially when customers aren’t expecting delivery costs).
Hopefully, this should demonstrate that any businesses coming under pressure from the Delivery Economy can take simple steps to reduce expenditures and minimise any delivery costs passed onto customers.
5 simple steps: how to save fleet fuel
For the average fleet, fuel is often the highest cost after vehicle acquisition. Here are some top tips on how to cut that down!
1.Put drivers first
Speak with your drivers and create policies around fuel-related driving behaviours, like speeding and idling. To encourage economic driving, set targets around monthly fuel consumption. At 100 mph a car gets through 40% more fuel than at 80 mph.
2. Have a clear-out
Get rid of extra weight such as unused equipment or boxes (all that extra baggage can really adds up!). An empty roof box equates to an extra 3 gallons per 100 miles.
3. Stay pumped up
Always make sure your tyres are pumped up and try to use energy-saving tyres – they can cut fuel consumption by up to 20%. If the air pressure is even 0.2 BAR too low, fuel consumption increases by 10%.
4. Keep track of your fleet
Fleet trackers can help optimise routes, prevent vehicle misuse and track bad driving habits like speeding. On average, business save around 15% with fleet tracking systems.
5. Fill up right
Fill up your vans at the right time (the mornings are usually the most expensive), at the cheapest station and use fleet cards that offer discounts. Filling up at the right time and the right place can save up to 5% and 4%, respectively.
