Starter Kit. Idea 426 of 500. Cluster 22
Motorbike courier networks in the districts for the small exporters' parcels
The mechanism, from the book
The village cannot get a box to the container port. The gap is small firms, not big ones.
The first step
Ask 10 small exporters in one district, the spice packers, craft makers and online sellers, how they get parcels to a courier in the city now, how long it takes and what it costs. Offer a twice-weekly pickup by motorbike at a fixed price per parcel. The proof is a first route with enough regular parcels to cover a rider's day.
- Who pays first
- A small online seller or spice packer who loses a day travelling to send parcels, and pays because the pickup gives that day back.
- What leaves today
- Small producers sell raw to traders because shipping their own parcels is too hard; a courier network lets them sell finished goods direct.
Ask first
- Department of Motor Traffic. Ask which licence and registration a motorbike needs when it carries parcels for paying customers.
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask how to register a small delivery business before you take regular fees.
Check before you spend
Confirm that the rider's licence and the motorbike's insurance cover carrying other people's goods for money, and what the courier you hand over to requires.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a small exporter spend now to get one parcel to the city?
- How many parcels a week would the first route collect?
- What does a rider cost for a day, with fuel?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka House. Chapter Seventeen
"We ship to the hotel, the airport, or the other side of the world."
The small producer should not have to carry the parcel. Somebody near her can do that part for a fee.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.