williamwright wrote:
On 19/05/2021 15:12, Andrew wrote:

A painter and decorator was working in a house opposite
me. One day a small lorry turned up, signwritten in
the logo and decals of a Paint supplier based 10 miles
away and handed over three tins of paint. I assume the
decorator had a trade account with them so they just
delivered to where the guy was working. Customer just
ends up paying.

It's quite efficient. It's the model used by auto parts suppliers. They
can do a delivery round to a dozen garages and not cover many miles.

It's really useful for garages, because you can have the vehicle in bits on
the lift, discover you really need a part, and they'll put one on the van
for delivery in time for you to complete the job in time for the customer
pickup at the end of the day.

That's the service the customer is paying for. I presume there's a fleet of
vans delivering stuff to local garages in early afternoon that was ordered
in the morning.

Theo