The Pros and Cons of Having Your Own Drinks Delivery Fleet

As a growing drinks brand, how you get your product to your customers matters.

One of the biggest logistics question we've heard from drinks producers ask is:

“Should I run my own delivery fleet or work with a third-party logistics (3PL) provider?”

Although it's true that fleet managers face a number of challenges (cost control, compliance and the well known headache of route optimisation just to name a few), owning your own vehicle for drinks delivery does also come with its positives.

In this article, we'll explore the advantages and disadvantages of owning your own drinks delivery fleet, to help you understand whether it's the right move for your drinks brand.

‍The Pros of Running Your Own Drinks Delivery Fleet

For some drinks producers, owning and operating their own vans can be a highly-strategic asset. Here’s why:

1. Control Over Delivery Schedules

Running your own drinks delivery fleet means you have full control of how and when deliveries can happen. This means you can:

• ‍Prioritise key customers or venues you're delivering into ‍
• Make adjustments to accomodate late orders ‍
• Add in an extra delivery day if needed
  

Although owning your own delivery fleet gives you the ultimate flexibility for delivery days, this isn't to say that outsourcing your fleet will limit when you can deliver.

For example, some drinks 3PLs like Tap'in offer next-day drinks delivery into London & the South East from Tuesday to Friday, with multiple van runs a day.

If delivery frequency is something that you're concerned about, our team are happy to chat through your options.

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2. Strong Brand Presence

Most drinks producers who own their own drinks delivery fleet brand their vehicles. It's a smart and cost-effective mobile advertising technique that encourages brand recognition. Your vans are already delivering, so why not advertise on the vehicles while they're on the road?

Van branding is especially beneficial if you want to expose your brand to the local drinks market.

When you outsource your drinks delivery fleet, this means you're missing out on using branded vans. However, if your drinks business' priority is focused on utilising more sustainable drinks delivery practices, this may not be an issue.

Outsourced partners won't put your drinks brand on vans- but they will utilise consolidated deliveries. Delivery consolidation is considered to be a lot better for the planet and might even align more with your company values.

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3. Choose your own delivery drivers

Your drinks delivery drivers are an extension of your team. They have the very important job of building rapport with bar managers, retailers and other trade customers. Being able to carefully select your own drivers means that you keep close control of who is representing your business.

This isn't to say that your drinks deliveries won't be in good hands if you outsource your fleet- a drinks-only 3PL works full-time to ensure deliveries are optimised specifically for delivering drinks into venues.

Tap'in are a drinks-only 3PL that carefully choose direct delivery partners to run drinks deliveries full time. Concerned about whether a 3PL can offer you a bespoke delivery service into venues for your drinks brand? The Tap'in team are more than happy to talk you through your options [fill out a contact form here].

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The Cons of Running Your Own Drinks Delivery Fleet

Despite many positives, running your own fleet definitely comes with its challenges- especially as your drinks business starts to grow.

1. High Fleet Operating Costs

When you take into account:

1. Van purchase costs
2. Fuel costs
3. Van insurance costs
4. Driver's salaries
5. Vehicle maintenance
6. Breakdown cover
7. A backup vehicle if one of your vans ends up off-the-road
   

... it all starts to add up. In fact, studies have found that 50.3% of logistics expenditure comes from transportation costs!

For brands that are conscious about their in-house logistics spend, running a fleet may not be sustainable in the long term.

Having an outsourced fleet- or even a fully-outsourced logistics function- can significantly reduce your overhead costs.

Unsure how much you could save by outsourcing your drinks logistics?

Check out our free drinks logistics resources here:

1. In-house vs Outsourced Drinks Logistics Calculator
2. How Much Does a 3PL Cost? 3PL Pricing Models and Fees
   

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2. Limited Scalability

When your drinks business' sales increase and you start to scale, you'll want to scale your delivery reach too. Whether this is regionally or nationally, scaling your drinks delivery reach could become harder when you're limited to your own vehicles.

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One way to combat limited delivery reach is to partner up with an outsourced logistics partner (3PL). A drinks 3PL like Tap'in has access to:

1. A larger delivery fleet who can deliver further due to the number of vans
2. Quick and easy delivery into key locations (e.g London and Brighton) due to their warehouse location
3. A contract with a delivery courier for integrated ecommerce/DTC drinks fulfilment
4. Connections to Pallet Network solutions for further UK drinks delivery reach

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3. Time and Focus Drain

Every hour your team spends planning routes, managing drivers or dealing with failed deliveries is time not spent on brewing/distilling/fermenting, boosting sales or refining your marketing.

One of the biggest benefits a third-party logistics partner (3PL) can provide for drinks businesses is freeing up your time. Budgets can be amended and more money can be invested into your business as you grow- but your precious time will always be limited.

3PLs manage your drinks logistics and delivery fulfilment for you.

What are the other options to running my own drinks fleet?

If the cons of running your own drinks fleet outweigh the pros, you could consider partnering with a drinks-specialist third-party logistics (3PL) provider.

3PLs offer many additional benefits for drinks producers, including:

1. Pay only for what you use: no need to rent an expensive warehouse full-time
2. Drinks logistics expertise: 3PLs (especially those who are drinks-specialist) have full time logistics and Customer Service teams that work full-time to support their drinks clients
3. Cost savings:
4. Access to expert software: 3PLs usually use specialist Warehouse Management Softwares (WMS) such as Clarus, as well as expert routing software like MaxOptra. Many 3PLs (such as Tap'in) offer their drinks clients access to these expert softwares so they can stay in-the-loop with their outsourced operations.
   

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Should I Run My Own Drinks Delivery Fleet or Outsource?

Still not sure whether purchasing and managing your own drinks delivery fleet is right for you? Take a look at the pros and cons side-by-side to see which is best for your drinks brand:

Final Thoughts: Delivery Fleet or Third-Party Logistics Partner?

Having your own drinks delivery fleet gives you control, but it comes with cost, complexity and can even limit your drinks brand's scalability. For many drinks brands, a specialist drinks 3PL provides a more flexible, cost and time efficient, scalable solution.

Ready to Optimise Your Drinks Delivery?

At Tap'in, we specialise in drinks logistics and order fulfilment for breweries, wineries, distilleries and low-and-no alcohol producers.

Tap'in 3PL could work for your drinks business if:

1. You're a drinks producer: Tap'in exclusively works in drinks logistics. Our clients include breweries, wineries, distilleries and low-and-no alcohol drinks producers. We use a simple PDL charging matrix that is specifically built to show you whether outsourcing your drinks logistics with us would be more cost-effective than managing a fleet in-house.
   

1. You produce in the UK and are looking for London and South-East deliveries: our warehouse is located just 5 miles from Woolwich means our team can deliver into London 4 times a week, even offering next-day deliveries (subject to our delivery timetable).
   

1. You deliver a minimum of 3,500 litres of drink per month: for our drinks logistics service to be cost-effective and efficient, we work specifically with drinks producers operating on these minimum quantities.

Check out our FREE drinks logistics cost tool to see how much you could save with Tap'in. Our bespoke pricing covers:

• Receipt and handling of drinks stock
• Storage (based on your particular volumes)
• Direct drinks delivery into London & the South East
  

Let us handle the drinks delivery, so you can focus on crafting exceptional drinks.

Contact our expert team using the form below.

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