Yodel

I see that Yodel are having to advertise on here with multi-drop work.

Please be aware that they are used to dealing with their delivery staff as a "Lifestyle Choice" similar to Hermes and do not expect to have to pay a true cost of having parcels delivered.

http://www.parcelforum.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5504 [Admin: Link removed as Parcel Forum is now no more.]

They've got a bit of a culture shock coming to them then, haven't they?

We were asked to supply 16 vans until January.

Too many hours and too little pay to make it viable for the drivers or us as a business.

I hear they need up to 40 more vans in at least one of their depots in the Northwest, and are offering £150 a day.

That might suit some people. www.mtvan.com/courier-directory/yodel/8

It has to be worth a phone call, if you aren't earning enough at the moment, just to see what they are offering.

No wonder they are short of drivers

www.parcelforum.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5463

I had a phone call from them this morning, offering 50-60p per parcel 1-2 parcels per drop. Now waiting for one of their 'local' guys (local as in covers The Midlands from The Wash to Anglesey) to call me to talk more.

Multi dropping gives you the driver a guaranteed income....something sadly lacking in our industry....but how many 10hour days can you do before being carted away by the men in white?

We stopped supplying drivers several years ago and just concentrate on sameday......as for being paid per parcel?....be careful cos if you get a rural round you'll earn nothing...gotta go for a day rate...based on a 10hour day....or tell em to sod off

And lets not forget come January they'll just get shot off you anyway.....

Its all about supply and demand...they need you more than you need them....make sure they know it.

Well I didn't hear any more from them yesterday, but SC I will talk to them about getting paid in 'day-rate' as opposed to per parcel if they should call me again. I have to admit I didn't come into this business to do multi-drop, I've heard too much negative stuff about it from drivers I've known in the past. But on the other hand, if I did a couple of days a week, it would at least pay a couple of the monthly bills.

One of their guys rang me on Thursday morning, about 08.00, saying they had loads of work, at any one of their 3 depots local to me.

Said there divisional manager would ring me Thursday/Friday, still waiting for that call, perhaps they don't need as many o/ds after all.

The only way to work for them is on a day rate, too many rural areas down here in sunny Devon, to make any reasonable money.

Yep that was the exact words of the phone call I had, with the same outcome. As you can imagine, East Anglia has got a lot of rural area also so will negotiate a day rate if they get back to me.

So has anybody out there had a positive response from Yodel? Or are there alot of people waiting for a phone call!

I think they may be testing the water to see if mtvan is the place for them to find drivers for as and when they do need them

Well, I tried it and for the first day it was okay, but now I've done a few days, I'm not so sure. By the time I've delivered 60+ parcels, after fuel I'm not making much more than £40 a day, if that.

I thought it would do just to get some money rolling in, but after sitting down and working out the numbers, fuel, extra miles and wear and tear on the van I really don't think it's a great option unless you have the capacity to do 100+ parcels a day and don't mind leaving the depot till gone 10 or 11am and getting home at 9.30-10pm.

Yodel are advertising for owner/drivers and they really are desperate, they just can't cope with the number of parcels coming through the doors. Average of 22,000 parcels a day at the moment as opposed to the usual 14,000 a day they normally do.

I wouldn't be sorry not to work for them again, but thank them for the experience.

Just tell them it's not even going to pay you the minimum wage at their current rate and you will carry on for a flat fee of £250 a day which is still cheaper than hiring a van and paying an agency to supply the driver.

And also don't forget as soon as is slacks off they'll drop you in an instant.

I know how these companies work. We have been dealing with them for years on our terms.

Talking of agency drivers, they getting them in too, paying £6.25 an hour.

Yes but yodel will be paying anything up to £20 per hour for each supplied person depending on start and finishing times.

I tried it out for a day to see if it would work for us and I can say at a pound a parcel it really doesn't and I delivered in a built up area. I offered my services at 2 pounds a parcel and they just laughed so if you can get £250 a day I suggest you take it and I will work for you at £200 a day so everyone is a winner I look forward to your call Mr Nottingham couriers.

P.S I am working in Austria from the 9th of Jan for a week so unavailable that week hope its not inconvenient.

I asked them about day rate and was told 'no chance'.

I suggest you take it and I will work for you at £200 a day so everyone is a winner I look forward to your call Mr Nottingham couriers.

No Mr Biggin courier, you are missing the point.

Yodel, TNT, DHL will not pay £250 per day in normal circumstances but when they have cages and cages of items to deliver we can sometimes name our price so to speak.

We have charged this rate knowing that they will stop using us the minute they find someone to cover the run. We are not overcharging them either when you take into account the amount of hours they want our drivers to work at short notice our rate is quite acceptable. After all we are a same day service not multi-drop services.

They call , we quote the rate for the hours required or number of parcels to deliver depending on location i.e. rural or suburban they say yes or no it's that simple.

I'm not saying you are over charging I think £250 is about right. What I am saying is that they wouldn't even pay £140 a day. I took a cage that had been sitting in the warehouse for 2 weeks and that wasn't the only cage.

We have had calls from several of the so called "big companies" DPD, Royal Mail etc asking for more or less the same. They won't pay the going rate and expect a first class service!!! Well in my experience you pays for what you gets... and when you pay peanuts!!

I rang them this morning, but no one was answering. Fortunately, a job came in before lunchtime and I've not long been back in the house.

Lets not forget that a lot of sameday work has been lost to overnighters...so you helping em out when they're in the shit is not helping the sameday market...the more they overnighters f*** up the more may realise it ain't worth it....and they may well come back to "guaranteed" deliveries.

And if you do help em out.....charge em for it ffs....

When my local Yodeller gave up I was contacted (as I had spoken to his controller before) to see if I wanted to take over the Welling round. When I told him what I was doing, and how much I was earning, he suggested he just contact me if he had a sameday work needing delivery. I guess he realized he was yodelling up the wrong mountain!

As we're coming round to that time of year again, thought it'd be worth a quick update to this thread.

It seems like it all went wrong for Yodel at the end of 2011, it'll be interesting to see how they get on this time round.

I notice the Parcel Forum is no more, is that in some way related? I know they were made up mostly of 'Lifestyle Couriers' and were affected last year? Does anyone do any work with them? You may remember that Yodel dipped their toe on here for a few days a year ago.

Apparently since last year they have lost contracts from Debenhams, John Lewis and Mothercare, so they should be a lot quieter now. Maybe they'll cope.

Some good info in the sun...

The Sun says:

---

NOTORIOUS delivery company YODEL has slashed the number of packages it wants to handle this Christmas by 18 PER CENT after last year’s festive chaos.

New boss Dick Stead told The Sun it had capped capacity after being panned by thousands of customers in 2011. It admitted it had failed to deliver 15,000 parcels a day on behalf of big name stores in the run-up to last Christmas.

This December Yodel will be delivering a reduced amount of 4.25million parcels a week to homes across Britain. That’s almost a million less than the same month last year.

It is also investing in four extra Christmas service centres, 15 contingency warehouses and a Midlands control tower. Mr Stead said: “I’ve never seen or heard of planning of this detail. Yodel is determined this year to have a good Christmas.” The firm — one of Britain’s biggest delivery operators — was caught out last year after a surge in online orders.

Full article on The Sun's website.

Where's the lifestyle in multi-drop, chasing ya ass all day? £500 a day doesn't cover it.

£500 a day? lifestyle couriers are lucky to earn that in a month!! they couldn't pay me enough to go back to multi dropping!!

Mr Badger, they wouldn't want you back, they have upped their standards.

They can't afford the service they offer, so i say let em drown under a mountain of parcels and a queue of complaints

Pardon my ignorance but what the hell is a lifestyle courier?

You got me... maybe its the term used for someone who likes doing a 16 hour day for a pittance, gets no thanks when he does a good job, but a tirade of abuse if it goes a bit pear shaped, has to wait an age to get paid, gets undercut by drivers who think that buying a van and a sat-nav makes them a courier, and watches his margins getting smaller week by week.

Am I warm?

Warm, I think you're red hot (not in a sexual way).

Aaahhh that explains it, I must be a lifestyle courier then.. :-D

Good post Mr 021.

However like any business venture you should go in with a good business plan. I probably have a different opinion to many of you on here. I found no easy paths in this game. I was never lucky enough to have the help that you people are willing to offer.

I strongly feel that if people are daft enough to enter into these ventures without planning and research then they deserve all that may come.

[Admin: Snip... Please don't promote your website on here.]

I must say I like the sod off version, but thats just me.

Can worms? Profile deleted! What next? Courier Exchange. Com

I was saying £500 a day would not get me on multi drop

I quite like multi dropping and i worked for a couple of the larger before xmas , ive worked for most multi dropping and lets say you either can or you cant , its not easy , oddly though as you drive around you get to know and chat to all the other drivers doing the same round for different companys , always good to pull someone over and suss where everything is

Only saying as i thought id say the rates for xmas gone, what happens is a courier company will take on people to cover the xmas rush , these people are a mix of euro couriers who cant get work before xmas to dipshits who can hardly find the steering wheel to people looking to make a couple of quid before the slow season ( me )

the place i worked at this year i was paid £150 a day, thats 3 postcodes ( partial with some of them ) covering an area say 10 mile by 10 mile, this doesnt sound so bad until you try to find every house, every granny flat, every bloody caravan parked up behind some fence, others were on different rates be it a lad in a hire van at £90 a day ( van/fuel supplied ) to £180, i was also paid £125 at another going to £140 depending on distance, i have heard of £200 a day , 3 grand a month , fuel at less than a grand ( lwb sprinter ) ,,,,says it all really

Day rate is IMO the best, simply put you have no idea on the work load on per drop, £1.20 a drop seems great but this depends on may things, parcel force for example pay this but if theres 8 going to 1 place you get just the price for 1 drop ( unlike hermes by the way ) which means you have a shed load of scanning shunting and hassle for little reward. If theres 100 drops then seems you on good money but make it 80 with multis and then it doesnt look so great, when i used to work at 1 place i was getting 150 a drop and around the 60 a day over a massive area ( kingsbury to just under stoke ) , after a little while it evolved to 80 a day and a smaller area until i have a good sized town and its surrounding ( 4 postcodes ) where i was killing it at £900 a week for just a lowly 14 hr day , the rates dropped to the point i was down to 60-70 drops a day and £1.20 , i kicked up such a fuss they sacked me when i said no to £1.10 a drop ( 200-250 a week after fuel only ) , that was SMS also known as SDS by the way , be warned , run , run fast

The bigger the city the worse conditions you will suffer working for overnighters, if theres 300 vans you will be in a sea of hassle and people couldnt give a toss but will pull you up on the slightest thing, an excellent example, an address i cant find Sat navs wrong, i asked at the only house thats there and the fella said never heard of it call and its parcel2go customer services ...sod it Phone app of both waze and M8 both wrong, same cottage , google earth and a postcode check on 192 , nope Ask in TNT, never heard of it Ask DPD fella plus another never heard of it Ask a taxi driver and nope Ask both in the local post office and a post lady, nope I go back into work as i tend to see it as a personal thing to find everywhere and get rid of everything... Did you call in? Did i? Should have called in otherwise your in trouble! Found it the next day driving a different lane At xmas time it gets a little desperate to find workers and none english speakers are rife , in out of the way depots there much more relaxed and will treat you nicely, left in a porch when you shouldnt have? No probs fella try to remember tomorrow aye, big citys expect a call of an angry manager , expect to be treated like a 5 year old with a lighter stood next to a burnt sofa

so all in multi dropping can be a viable way of earning a few quid making the slow jan/feb easier to take , its not for everyone

Count me out it's horrid, Sooner watch Jerremy Hawke, sorry Kyle while drinking coffee and eating carrot cake, upto about 10 drops is ok anymore is not good.

My multi dropping these days is 3 or 4 items. Some dont like my response to more but at least its made clear.

I did a 20 drop around Nottingham a couple of years ago, never again.

A quick 15 yesterday, walk in the park, 100 or so miles around the midlands for £140 with almost zero dead miles