Owner-drivers step over the wailing wall
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Small hauliers can do better if they pool their resources instead of standing alone, argues Stockport-based Bulk Tippers. Jack Semple hears why
BULK TIPPERS (Cheshire) is going for growth and profit by selling services to owner-drivers and small hauliers.
It is stepping up its clearing house activities and is looking for a site from which to offer bulk diesel, parking and maintenance facilities for local operators.
The firm has been established in the Manchester area for more than 20 years. It was set up by five small tipper hauliers to exchange loads and help find traffic, and until recently did not look much beyond the needs of the directors' businesses, and was not expected to make profits.
Any notion of complacency was shaken by the recession, however, as the company was forced to find new sources of traffic. It is now benefiting from a broader base for loads and is growing, with a core now of at least a dozen independent hauliers relying on the company for traffic regularly each day.
The directors and staff at Bulk Tippers have a simple philosophy. Independence is fine, but not to the extent of isolation. Owner-drivers are far too fragmented for their own good. And they needn't be.
Picture the Wailing Wall. This is the term used to describe the phenomenon of a queue of tip pers at a High Peaks quarry waiting for work. There's little to do but wait and wail. Most drivers would like to try and get work elsewhere, but they have not the time to chase work, and in any case feel tied largely to one quarry.
"They'll sit here all day, in the middle of nowhere. And they fear that if they leave their main quarry, they may lose their little niche. They don't realise they're losing money," I was told when I met directors Joe Bragg and Tom Pears and general manager Bob Wyatt at Bulk Tippers' office in Stockport this month. month.
Bulk Tippers, on the other hand, has a wide range of contacts for traffic, both geographically and in terms of the size and type of load needing shifted. It has 300 accounts, and full-time staff to service them. "When work is scarce, the office staff here is doing the chasing."
The theory is not new, but Bulk Tippers appears to be making it work. Mr Wyatt told me that because of its range of accounts owner-drivers using the firm could expect a much higher proportion of backloads than if they were working entirely on their own. They can run 75 per cent loaded, he said.
Bulk Tippers does not only get the load. It handles most of the paperwork, and invoices the customer. Owner-drivers are paid regularly by Bulk Tippers, which has bad-debt insurance through Trade Indemnity. Goods in transit insurance is automatically applied. In short, ownerdrivers are relieved of much of the hassle involved in their business and should run with greater efficiency. The cost to the sub-contractor is six per cent of the tonnage rate, 10 per cent on site work. Bulk Tippers maintains that it does not take work for less than the quarries' agreed rate schedules (and has lost loads to hauliers who have undercut by as much as 30 per cent).
Messrs Bragg, Peers and Wyatt do not like the business being called a clearing house be cause that means "rip off" to most hauliers. They offer a fair deal.
Bulk Tippers moved into diesel sales a year ago. The firm at present acts as broker for a supplier, and can pass on savings of 0.2 to 0.3 pence a litre to hauliers taking loads of just 500 or 1,000 gallons, while taking 0.2 pence a litre itself.
If buying direct from a distributor, owner-drivers and small hauliers would probably have to pay cash on delivery and would have to pay a lot more for small deliveries. The present price for a 500 gallon delivery through Bulk Tippers is around 31 pence a litre.
The company plans shortly to buy its own bunkers, so that it will be able to take full tanker load deliveries and sell to owner drivers at low pump prices.
Hauliers taking advantage of the service will no longer need their own bulk tank — particularly important if it needs replacing.
In addition to diesel sales, Bulk Tippers aims to offer parking for local operators, vehicle washing and basic workshop facilities. This could be particularly impor
tant after June 1, when residents will be able to object to operator licence applications on environmental grounds.
Small hauliers are expected to be worst hit by the new law.
Bulk Tippers is breathing new life into the notion that it makes sense for owner-drivers and small hauliers to share some of their major costs, and has ambi tious plans not only to develop new services, but to make profits from them.
Early indications are that some of the area's fiercely independent small hauliers are also profiting.