How to open a shipping company

The transportation sector is very actively developing due to rapidly growing demand. Almost no company can do without transport services, and it’s usually very expensive to keep drivers and maintain cars. Therefore, opening a transportation company can be a good investment.

You will need

• - documents on registration of a legal entity;

• - office;

• - carriers;

• - staff;

• - advertising.

Instruction manual

1

Creating any business requires writing a detailed business plan. Calculate the investments required to open a company, fixed and variable costs, turnover and profit.

2

Register a legal entity with the tax office. You can, of course, become an individual entrepreneur, but in this case, finding customers will be somewhat more difficult. It is best to choose a general tax system, otherwise most of the major manufacturers will not want to work with you, since VAT refund is very important for them.

3

For work you need an office. There are no special requirements for the premises. The main thing is that you have the ability to connect a landline phone and the Internet.

4

You can purchase your own automobile transport, hire drivers with personal cars, conclude contracts with transport companies. It should be borne in mind that maintaining a large staff of drivers and servicing personal vehicles is a rather troublesome and costly task, so at first it is better to get by with the services of other carriers. It is important that the drivers and companies with which you cooperate have in their hands a complete package of registration and authorization documents.

5

Pick up employees for work in office. You will need specialists in the sale of transport services and logistics. It’s quite difficult to find good workers in the transportation sector, so take care of their training and advanced training.

6

Engage in all kinds of advertising. On the Internet, you can post information on your own site, specialized bulletin boards, sites with information about carriers (access to them is usually paid), in contextual advertising on other portals. In local and specialized media, you can print articles about your company and its contacts with a list of services provided. Also, your sales specialists should make cold calls to potential customers and send commercial offers.

note

It is better to provide services for the transportation of goods by rail and air through specialized companies, since this area requires high financial costs and has specific features of transaction support.

Useful advice

Do not forget that transportation is also passenger, so it is advantageous to organize a transport company that provides services for sending goods on the basis of a taxi.