What’s the Difference between Haulage and Courier Services?

When it comes to getting your goods delivered, there are two main options – haulage services or courier services. It is easy to be a little uncertain about the differences between the two – both can be classed as types of transport companies and both will require ‘carriage of goods’ types of insurance.  So what is the difference?

Haulage and Courier Services

What is a courier company?

A courier company is a service that is used to transport all kinds of parcels and deliver them around the UK, sometimes even worldwide.  This is known as ‘multi-drop’ delivery.  These companies can range in size from single person courier services to massive companies like DPD and Parcelforce. 

The aim of the courier service is to deliver a number of parcels each day across a specific area and will often involve giving a precise arrival time.  They are used for both personal and business deliveries and have boomed in numbers in recent times due to the increase in online shopping and ecommerce, which rely on courier services to get products to customers in a set time frame.  Amazon’s Prime delivery with its guaranteed next day arrival is a classic example.

What is a haulage company?

Haulage companies generally offer services around larger or heavier items including container transport. The term ‘general haulage’ may well include light loads, but tends to cover delivery of a number of items to a single location, rather than a number of items to a variety of different delivery points.

Normally, with hauliers, the trip will start from a point of origin and be delivered to a scheduled location without multiple stops in between to drop off other items.  Usually, when arranging transport and haulage, there will be one to three stops whereas a courier could have ten or more stops depending on the size of their vehicle and parcels involved.

With large, heavy or abnormal loads, such as a shipping container, hauliers often will deliver a single item.  Container hauliers will collect the container at the point of arrival such as Southampton docks, put it on their vehicle and take it the point of delivery.

How to know what you need

If you are a business that requires deliveries, the easiest way to decide whether you need haulage or a courier service is to look at the number and type of items to be delivered. 

Let’s say you are a small clothing boutique who sells online.  You have ten orders a day to be sent to clients across the UK – a courier service is most likely going to be the best option.  However, let’s say you are a business that manufactures large industrial ovens and deliver one every few days to a business across the UK.  Then a haulage company will be the best option as a courier wouldn’t be able to handle or move the oven into place.

When you contact either couriers or hauliers, they will quickly tell you if you are talking to the right people.  But as a general rule, the smaller the item, the more likely you will want a courier and the bigger or heavier, a haulier will be your first phone call.