| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Clean Air Charge for Driving in London | |
| Posted by: | David Lesniak | |
| Date/Time: | 20/01/22 13:47:00 |
| Andrew, I'd say the devil would be in the detail. At present if we need to deliver into the congestion zone it costs £15. Do we charge £15? No. Customers would never go for it especially if they can get something delivered for £2.50 or whatever the Ocado fee is these days. In a way, delivery is a bit of a loss leader. If we take the risk locally and fail, it could cost upward of £60 is it if we pay a PCN quickly? So, again, we have effectively been cut off from serving a customer base we've served for years. Now it's a risk management equation when before it was risk-free. It is also more time consuming so not a win/win as it should be especially on the local level. When possible we try to coordinate deliveries to customers with driving to set-up/deliver our markets and with supply runs. So the current system of a daily fee makes more sense for the bottom line for a business that is London-centric. No clue what the charge would be for a demand management scheme. But I can tell you there are days we clock 50 miles in a day and sometimes more as lately we're having to go further afield to get the supplies needed. To rely on a supplier delivery is a crap shoot at the best of times as they are unpredictable both in terms of timing and quality/quantity of goods delivered. For example, if they come late and don't have all that was ordered, we are caught short-handed. And we won't know that until they get to the door. Many of the hospitality suppliers are surprisingly old-school when it comes to technology. And if we click over to the trades, if your plumber needs a part to fix your toilet and his normal supplier doesn't have it, is he expected to eat the additional cost for having to go around searching for it? I can assure you if they attempted to limit their costs potentially leaving you without a toilet for a night, they would never hear the end of it. So a moving target fee seems punitive to small businesses of a certain size. Perhaps tiers of small are in order? |