A Busy Week for Light Vans.
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THIS is the season of the year when the shopkeeper with a philosophical turn of mind wonders what he would do without his handy motor vehicle. The December shopping season is the busiest time of the year, and tradesmen in all classes of business look forward to a bigger turnover than at any other time. Not only are stocks larger and sales greater, but, in the stress of shopping activities, the public looks forward to being provided with a delivery service which it would not expect at less exciting periods.
Interviews which our representatives have had with store proprietors and shopkeepers in the South-West Lancashire district enable us to say that the increase in the traffic factor at Christ
mas—from the point of view of the number of deliveries—is from 50 per cent. to 75 per cent, as compared with the normal shopping week.
During the week in which Christmas Day occurs delivery vans work long hours, with but comparatively short intervals for rest. Every class of tradesman looks forward to getting a share of increased trade, and even motor haulage contractors figure more prominently in the scheme of things than they do normally. Business firms without their own transport fleets very frequently would be in a sorry plight had they not the resources of the motor carrier and hanlier to call upon to help them in their delivery activities.
" We expect this (Christmas)
week," said the transport manager of Messrs. Lewis's Stores, Liverpool, "to deliver from 25,000 to 30,000 parcels by motorvans."
During the month of December heavy haulage contractors have been experiencing better offerings of traffic, especially in fruit and provisions, and journeys between Liverpool, Manchester and the other market centres have been more frequent than at any other time during the year.
The motor's merry Christmas is no mean or half-hearted affair. Its voice is one of service, and there is not a family in the land amongst which it has not, in some degree, been responsible for the dissemination of the spirit of Yuletide.