Hi Everyone!

A customer of mine has asked if my company would be able to deliver 600 cookies in baskets to several of their brokers offices. There are 51 addresses in total. I Google mapped all locations and it came out to a total of approx. 170 miles and 6 hours of driving time . I plan on splitting it into 2 days (so that I don't completely lose my mind). My question is...how much do you think I should charge? I normally charge around $5-25 per delivery depending on the distance but I have never made more than 2 deliveries for one client. Your advice would be very appreciated..Thank you!!

Wow, I'm not in business, but I'm thinking I would estimate my time for delivery, charge and hourly rate + gas and mileage.

How much business revenue are you giving up to do these deliveries? This is called opportunity cost (as in lost opportunity to make $$).

Yes..someone told me to do $1 per mile but that only comes out to $170 which seems like nothing for 2 days of hell! Plus that 6 hours doesn't include me finding parking and the time for me to find the recipient to hand over the basket...sometimes deliveries can take up to 20 mins if there is security so the person must come downstairs to sign for the package. It is a great client with awesome opportunities for the future so I don't want to say no...I just want to think of a fair charge.

Toptier - that is an excellent point..I didn't even think of that!!

I'm thinking maybe $470? $2 per mile plus $25 per hour of driving time..what do you think? Is that too much??

That sounds reasonable to me!

With whatever figure you select, remember in your own mind that you are basically shutting your doors of your business for AN ENTIRE DAY!!!!! to make these deliveries for them.

Another option .... are these FedEx shippable? It might actually be cheaper to do FedEx ground and pass the cost thru to the client, rather than you actually doing the delivery.

I once had a similar order. When I mapped out the route on Mapquest, it didn't look too bad. What I didn't factor in was that places would be closed (day off/lunch) and I'd have to go back. In reality I should have Quadrupled the Mapquest estimate.

So if you had to add on delivery for one of these orders what would it be?

Times 51.

I don't have help on the cost factor - though I do think you need to charge for your time on top the actual cost for gas/wear and tear. I also have to add, since you're saying this is a great customer and you're thinking about future order with them, make sure you don't undersell this service (after all, you're a cake decorator, not a courier service!) because they will probably expect a similar deal the next time they want a bunch of cookies delivered. Good luck!

Why not hire a reputable local delivery/courier service. Or at least get a quote from them. I would go as far as telling your client you need to do this so you can concentrate on your business (baking).

I'm sorry for the late response but we've actually been swamped around here. I just thought I would let you ladies know how much I appreciated your input. Leah - I should have taken your advice more seriously. For those of you who are ever propositioned something like this..I have only one word...COURIER or UPS.

Here's what happened: I charged her $525 which I thought was pretty fair since, as most of you mentioned, UPS would be far more expensive. It started off well enough on Tuesday as we began to deliver the packages...most of the offices were open, only 2 were out to lunch (we made a note to redeliver the next day) and one address was invalid as they had moved. We did 26 deliveries the first day so we figured the next day would be a breeze. We were so WRONG! The last deliveries were not close to each other so we began early. There were 15 addresses that were incorrect..we found out some had moved YEARS ago...some were impossible to find even with our GPS. We ended up driving in loops the whole day trying to go back to certain locations to redeliver. At 6pm, when the businesses were closing, we still had 8 more to go. I had to call the client to let her know that due to the faulty address list she sent us..the 6 hour delivery frame turned out to be a 15 hour hell (OK so I didn't say hell but I wanted to!). The client ended up keeping the 8 remaining baskets so we delivered them to her the next morning.

The amount of stress driving around for two whole days plus 3 hours the next morning was definitely NOT worth the money.

Lesson learned...the hard way of course. I hope my little fiasco will spare someone else!!!

Sorry to hear that it was such a rough delivery experience. But thanks for sharing it for others to consider.

Another option (or hopefully it would help) is what florist do (at least in our area) get a phone number to go with every address and call in advance to find out the best delivery time and confirm the address. I know it is a little more work on the front end, but hopefully it keeps you doubling or tripling your estimated delivery time.

Cookie-queen, that was EXACTLY my experience.

I'm coming in on this late, but I would have said $20 per delivery!

Hi Leily - After a couple of tough deliveries, we ended up calling each of the places. Some of them didn't pick up, though, so we had to visit them anyways. Even the ones that showed disconnected, we still had to pass by. Calling ahead did spare us some driving though, we found out the correct address for 3 of the places and the time that they opened and closed. If anyone has to deliver, I definitely recommend calling ahead to make sure there will be someone there. One of the places went out to lunch and closed up the whole place for almost 2 hours (must be nice!). Another one said he wasn't sure what time he would close, maybe 4 or 5.

Leah - I'm so sorry for the both of us. I kick myself for not listening to your advice. Let's hope there are less stubborn people than myself out there!

Costume - Although I would never..ever..ever attempt to deliver so many packages again, I do agree that $20 per delivery sounds good. In my case, however, 18 of the packages were very close together (some in the same building) so I didn't think it would be fair.

My biggest advise would be to make sure your customer gives you a recently updated list and say "please make sure these addresses and phone numbers are valid because we will charge a fee for each redelivery attempt". And if they are time-sensitive deliveries you can add "if there are more than a couple of redelivery attempts please note that some of your packages may not arrive on time." Or, something like that. Like I said..lesson learned. Been in business 8 years and still learning new things every day!