Hi, I'm Pete, the courier driver. And this video is on what changes I think we can expect to see in
the courier business in 2022. Now that's based on my own opinions, a little bit of research,
and also just being part of it. And just by being part of it you get to know where you
think it's going and what's going on, learning by Osmosis, you know what's going on out there.
Before we start, we do a few videos for the Circuit channel now,
trying to help you guys. If you like the videos, if you could please
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So what do we think can be the major changes this year? Firstly, general deliveries are on
the increase. It's partly to do with, well, mainly to do with the Coronavirus thing to the lockdown.
I mean, not just me, experts Theo Pathetis, who's on Dragon's Den (that's kind of the
UK.). If you're watching this in the US, I think you guys get Shark Tank or something like that.
But he's a major high street entrepreneur. He runs a firm we've got called Robert Dyas.
And he said recently in an interview with the BBC, he said that, basically,
the whole Coronavirus thing has completely changed the way we shop.
Now, it was gonna happen anyway. Because I think, as a matter of time, just a matter
of course, it's been a downward trend with the highstreet recently. A lot of people
now they've got the mobile devices, they've got used to convenience. They're shopping from home.
Even my mother-in-law doesn't go shops anymore. She actually shops on a phone like, you know?
And so, it is, in general, going to mean an increase in home deliveries,
deliveries fullstop. A lot more on your Amazon Relay, a lot more on your Flex.
Also, it's gonna be an increase in two other major things:
PUDOs and OOHs. They're not the most off the tongue acronym in the end. They don't sort of
roll-off quite so easy, do they? But you've got a PUDO. A PUDO is a pickup and drop-off point.
So what you're thinking there, this is somewhere where you can drop your parcels off and you can
pick them up. So you've got your top. You're at work all day. So that would be your local shop,
your garage, all these kind of places, where it's the kind of place you might stop on your way home.
And the benefit for these places, is the fact that when you're in there,
you might as well do it with shopping, pick up a loaf of bread, pint of milk,
a paper, you know? Some ice cream, and that kind of thing.
So they gain from the point of view of the fact that you're actually shopping with them.
You gain from the convenience of the fact that you've got somewhere that you can go,
where it's been picked up and dropped off. But it does mean
it's another point of reference for us drivers where we can go to.
It's kind of convenient as well, because you're not searching around forever for an address.
A lot of times these places have got parking. They've got to have parking because otherwise,
they're not going to get any customers. So they're convenient from that point of view.
Also, in a similar vein, we've got OOHs. OOHs are out-of-home. So that means
they're the kind of filing cabinets that you'll see by petrol stations or tube
stations and all that. The idea being that you order something, and on your way home from work,
you come out of the tube station, you go, you put your details in, you put your card number in,
or you put your PIN number in, open up the drawer, and your package is there.
So you know you can get your stuff and you know it can get delivered safely.
Again, the advantage from a delivery point of view, is the fact that rather than having to go
around finding many addresses, you might, it will probably be as part of your route. So you'll do
all your individual home addresses and then you'll have a tube station address or a petrol station
address where you might have to drop off 10 packages, maybe also pick up a few packages, which
means returns. And when it comes down to returns, it's longer jobs, longer runs, more money.
Another big change, particularly with Amazon, has been a big move over to sustainability.
Now, sustainability, basically what that is, is the fact that it's servicing our needs right now
without negatively impacting the needs of future generations. So the idea being,
we still get what we need without messing up the future for our kids,
which, you know, is we're becoming wise to this stuff with the environment and all that stuff.
Like I say, Amazon is big on this. They're going (you've probably seen them), they're going very
big on the electric vans, and they're also going kind of just big in general, you know? One thing I
wish I'd like to see more of, I mean, they've gone over the cardboard packaging, they're trying to
reduce the plastic. Something I personally would like to see more of, is more sort of reusable.
I hate single-use plastic. and I'm not a big fan. The cardboards are okay.
But cardboard is recyclable. What I personally would like to see more is
just something a bit more solid-state. So for example, we get a lot of deliveries in here.
I say, no one goes to the supermarket anymore, no one goes to shops anymore. It all comes in.
So like plastic boxes, you could place a deposit, or you could buy it and in that way, they could
actually hand you your goods for the day, you give them back the empty plastic box, (particularly if
there's any returns in). We're a little way off that yet. I don't think that's going to happen in
2022, but that's something I'd like to see as we move towards, like, the middle of the decade. I'd
like to see a little bit more of that happening, but, you know, we're kind of okay on that.
Which begs the question: so electric vans? Pros, and cons of electric vans. They're fine if you're
Amazon. They're a multi, multi-million pound organization. They can buy fleets of vans.
For likes of us, individual drivers, there's a few problems with electric vans.
The biggest problem is going to be your range anxiety.
We're not quite there technology-wise yet. They are now opening stations. They are opening,
I think the first single charge petrol station, I think, somewhere in Essex or something like that.
And it's like a Tesla station, and they are starting to open just for electric charging now,
not just petrol stations, just electric charging. They're coming our way, but they're not there yet.
The other difficulty you've got is the time it's going to take to charge the van
and the distance you'll go. It's absolutely fine if you're Amazon to Amazon, you've got an Amazon
van, you plug it in, you go and you do your 30 miles, you go back and you plug it in. In fact,
we have had electric vehicles for a long time. They're very good on the
vehicle from the point of view. If you've got to do an awful lot of stop/starting,
it's not wearing out your keys, your solenoids, your batteries, and all that kind of stuff.
We've had them since the 1950s. They're called milk floats.
Used to charge them and they don't make noise. So you're not, you know, starting
your engine. If you deliver it at five o'clock in the morning, you're not upset in the close
because you keep turning the van on and off like, you know? They would just start silently.
But from our personal point of view, we're not there yet.
Should you go and buy an electric van? Like I say, the cost is very prohibitive
and the charging stations aren't there. So again, it's something that will come, but I
believe not in this year. I think it's something that the technology will have to catch up with.
Having said that, another big issue is going to be the environment thing.
And the environment thing will definitely hit us this year with the Zones. Now,
we've had the ULEZ in London for a few years now. That's the Ultra-low Emission Zone. Also,
London has now got an LEZ, a Low Emission Zone, which for vans is anything inside
the North Circular and in particular with lorries, pretty much anything inside the 25.
And Birmingham, Bath have got them, too. They've got CAZ, Clean Air Zones,
which means that if you're driving a vehicle which is Euro 5 or below, it charges you to get in.
Euro 5 is basically it's to do with how old your engine is. Your engine will go Euro 1,
Euro 2, duh, duh, duh, up to Euro 6. I don't think we're going to get much further than
Euro 6 because Euro 6 is about as clean as they can make it without going electric.
But it's to do with the amount of particle emissions. Even if you've got the ad blue and
all that, it's to do with the amount of particle emissions that you're pinging out of the van.
And the central Zones, where they've got a lot of traffic,
they're trying to cut it. So like I say at the moment we've got London, Birmingham, and Bath,
this year, we've got proposed our Zones for Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, and Bradford.
And also in Scotland, we're getting Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee proposed Zones.
Now, if you're running a van and you're into these areas all the time, you might want to think about
if your engine is Euro 5 or Euro 4, you might want to think about upgrading the engine, upgrading the
van. You won't upgrade the engine, upgrade the van. It's no point trying to change it over.
The problem this, again, is it's prohibitive. The difference in cost in, say, a secondhand Euro 5
van and secondhand Euro 6, it can cost you almost double money just to get the engine. So you've got
to ask yourself the question, how often am I inside this Zone? If I run all day,
every day inside the Zone, I'm going to have to think about upgrading my motor.
If you're only in there occasionally, then you can pay the Zone Charge. The Zone Charge,
they vary according to zone. I think London is around about £15 for a van. Some of them are,
like you know, nine pounds for cars, £15 for lorries (they're a lot more.)
I can't be more specific at this point because they just bringing them in. I know the ones
for lorries at the moment, but that will help you out with vans and stuff like that.
But these are things you're going to have to consider. You can go and get the references
on the website of the Zones when they're coming in, how much they are going to cost.
And then you're going to have to sort of make that one that decision up yourself.
Other things that are also on the up, once again, Amazon is very, very big on
food. They're increasing food. I mean, they're doing very well with obviously the parcel side
of things, with your Flex, and with your Relay. But they also bought Whole Foods and
they're opening Fresh stores. They're hoping to open 260 Fresh stores in the next three years.
Now, Fresh stores are walk-in. They're just like normal supermarkets. They're trying to
make them a bit more space-age. You can log in with your palm print. You can basically pick
the goods off the shelf, put them in a bag, and walk out. They're geotagged. So they know
what that basically says is it works out the position of the cans or what you buy.
So as soon as leaves the store,
it marries it up to you. It's technology I don't understand. It's very, very
impressive and very straightforward. But you can actually go, grab what you need and leave.
But also, in addition to the Fresh stores, there's going to be home deliveries. We've
already got the Ocado for the Waitrose and we've got Morrisons, Tesco, Sainsbury's,
all these people all offer their own home delivery services. Amazon will be doing their own home
delivery service, too, which will mean increased work, increased drivers, that kind of stuff.
All of these things mean, a combination of all of these things mean that it's going to be that
basically delivery is on the increase. It's going to be focused very much on multi-drop,
it's going to be focused very much on essentials. And with this in mind,
you want to get yourself prepared, get yourself a decent app. Circuit is very, very good.
It will basically tell you where the parcels are, it will give you the shortest journey,
it will save you time, and it will save you money. It's very, very good.
So in summary, what we're going to expect this year? Well, basically,
what we're looking for, we're looking for a slow decrease in the highstreet, which I think is
going to go, they're talking about repurposing it, urbanizing it. They're turning into like,
sort of spaces for people, turning them into flats, turning into theatres, that kind of stuff.
I don't think the high street will die completely, but it will become much more of
a sort of recreational area. Whereas a lot of shopping is going to go to your RDCs. RDCs are
massively on the increase. Every one of the major players, Audis, Tesco, Sainsbury's,
Amazon particularly, are putting a lot of money into building RDCs,
regional distribution centres and CFCs. These are Central Fulfilment Centres.
And these are the places where you will go to get your stuff, to go out, and do your multi-drop.
So they're very much on the increase. Sustainability is on the increase,
which is a good thing, which might possibly in the long term, hopefully, mean more returns,
which is more time. And also environment is big,
so you might want to think about whether you have got the right, if you got the right vehicle,
you need the right tools for the job. Circuit is a very good tool for the job.
I hope this helps. There's been more videos coming up. There will be plenty of links underneath to
other videos. And, like I say, if you do like the Circuit channel, I do appreciate it if you
could give it the thumbs up, give the sub. Everyone loves a subscriber. Give us a bell.
And I'd like to hear your comments as well because we're maybe gonna, there's obviously
going to be things that I've missed. So if you could just leave a little comment underneath,
we sometimes do a little thing, where we can actually reply to comments
you know? And it's nice to share. It's always nice to share, isn't it, really?
Nice to share, nice to work, nice to take care, and take money.