Becoming a Milkman/Paperman? Opinions Please...

blobert

Hi there,

I get my milk and paper delivered each day, as I'm sure do a lot of other people. Neither service is particularly good or reliable and I was wondering if it would be possible/profitable to try setting up a joint service.

The way I see it if you are going to have a van out on the roads for papers and a separate one for papers, why not offer both products together. Another major problem with the traditional method is going around and collecting money from your customers (our paperman and milkman seem to spend at least 2 days a week doing this). This seems very time consuming, I'm sure most people would be much happier with a bill each week (delivered at night) and a direct debit facility (no need to go fumbling for cash or a cheque each week). I have other genius ideas as well to improve things but I don't want to bore you.

Any advice on the idea would be much appreciated. Apparantly 16% of people get their milk delivered, do you think it is a shrinking or growing sector? I know the rise of newsagents means most people get their paper/milk there but surely people would prefer the convenience (at a low extra cost) of getting it delivered each morning?

I'm not sure of the costs or margins involved in this, perhaps anyone that works in retail might be able to let me know the wholesale prices for papers and newsagents? If there is only a 5c profit on each paper or litre of milk then it will probably not be viable (I think the prices would have to be very close to shop prices for people to want this service).

Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated. It is quite possible that the days of the milkman are long gone and I am living in a fantasy land that sees them as a great idea, but like I said, combining the two products (perhaps others also) seems to make sense. It would also be a relatively inexpensive idea (unlike most of my more elaborate business ideas:) And I don't mind working nights!

Thanks,
Robert

antoinolachtnai

Milk delivery is a shrinking sector. Power City ruined it. Also, collecting the money got harder and harder. Supermarkets sell the milk at a fairly tight margin, I understand.

Daily newspapers are also a shrinking sector. Free morning papers, local papers (which aren't daily), the Internet and so on are slowly ruining the fun.

If you did want to do this, the best way would be to acquire some paper rounds and some milk rounds in the same area. I wouldn't advise trying to do this on a micro-scale, you'd need to get some size behind you to make the technology and training investment worth it. Also, going into competition with the incumbent would just be crazy.

I don't know if you'd ever get the margin out of it though. Maybe if you found some way of servicing dense, built-up areas.

I think it would be a great business to be in, because of the opportunities for diversification, if there were a way of getting access to premises, but it's hard to see a way of doing it.

There were a number of dotcom-era grocery home delivery ventures which you should read about.