man with a van

[Glaucus]

does anyone do this sort of thing, getting and delivering goods from say ebay, sofas, motorbikes that sort of thing. Either part time or full time.
If so do you actually make a reasonable amount of money or is it totally saturated.

 

[agnes]

Think of it as a spare time job, stick an ad out on the newspaper and earn £50 for a mornings work basically.

I've got a mate who does this, by day he's a carpenter and doesn't like leaving the van full of expensive wood (he does bespoke jobs, such as barn renovations etc) and tools. So guts it out on Friday to his garage. Then rents his van out if he's got no plans to make a bit of pub money.

No idea how it would do for a full time position. Maybe a few hundred quid a month. But your insurance would probably be high as well. And obviously you'd be under an umbrella or your own ltd company. Which again, is a cost.

 

[MooMoo444]

There's definitely call for it. Renting vehicles is just too expensive and far too much hassle with returns inspections etc.

I would imagine you need a big social circle somewhat. Gotta keep your name out there.

 

[v0n]

It's not a job, it's an occasional pastime.

 

[Semple]

Brothers mate used to do this kind of thing for a while, earnings weren't too bad, but he did used to moan about the amount of hours he had to put in.

As MooMoo points out, Van rental costs these days are pretty extortionate, so being cheaper than them helps, but most of the work he got was word of mouth.

So yeah, maybe something you could do for a short while, but can't imagine many wanting to continue on for many years.

 

[tom_e]

Doing it on the quiet for a bit of pocket money is about the only way it'll be worth it.
Once you factor in declaring your earnings,business insurance on the van,insurance on the stuff you'll be carrying and everything else required to be "legal" then it's probably going to be minimum wage for all the hours God sends.

 

[dowie]

If you own a van then renting it out as suggested above could be a nice and fairly passive way to make a bit extra. But your OP suggests actually working as a delivery driver yourself - I'm not sure that is going to be particularly worthwhile... though I guess that is subjective - if your other options are shelf stacking in the local supermarket or glass collecting in the local pub then maybe it isn't so bad.

 

[darreny]

I wouldn't dismiss it completely, when I was making kitchens we had a guy that used to take all the carcasses and tops for us as our van was full of tools. Build a network with local businesses. If you can the ideal way is if you travel any distance then try and find a close pickup for the drive back

 

[Russinating]

Do you have a van? Ours is a crew one (5 seats, back 3 removable) so if I was made to do something on the side with it then I'd probably do Uber.

 

[robfosters]

Thread necro,

Raises the question though. Glaucus is another constant poster who hasn’t been here since May!

Are you ok pal?

 

[Iron-man]

even at Diy shops where people may want to buy bigger items I think there would be enough business there for it

 

[Eurofighter]

My friend was doing this but wasn't making much money, if you have a Luton Van with a tail lift then there are good high paying jobs at Amazon going. 2 of my friends now do this.