Van Users Feel The Pinch Again
November 5th, 2009 | by blog |Being forced to heavily reevaluate their business models is something that UK and American companies are accustomed to, after the price of petrol shot up last year. Many who relied on large fleets of vans to transport goods all over the country were forced to slash employee pay and take a number of their vehicles off the roads.
Now, after it was announced that petrol prices are set to rise again in the coming months, some businesses are on the edge and a large percentage of them are having to cut their fleet even further. This flux in prices is causing many companies a large amount of grief as they cannot accurately plan their profits and losses. “We get a set of forcasts drawn up and then they mean nothing when petrol goes up so much” argues Jerry Henley, Managing Director of JHG Foods. Over 20% of all American transport-based businesses were forced to cease trading in 2008, and the figure is thought to be something similar in 2009 also.
For companies that rely so heavy on petrol prices to turn over a profit, the news of another rise has not been well received. “We are being crippled” argues Fiona Potter, who runs a small furniture chain in the UK. Our customers expect their furniture to be delivered to them, which is something that is becoming financially unviable for us now. A number of similar companies are turning to cheap van leasing as a way of bringing down their overall costs. Because they are not buying the vehicles outright, they can afford to spend more on petrol whilst maintaining their margins. Believe it or not Citroen van leasing has come out on top this year in terms of popularity, largely due to the high miles per gallon figures they offer. LDV van leasing is also up their with the most popular choices as their reliability is well respected in many industries.
