Choosing a personal vehicle can be hard enough. When you’re buying for a commercial fleet, it’s a whole new world of pressure.
Your choice of commercial vehicles could influence your business from top to bottom, from your balance sheet to your service quality. That’s why choosing the right vehicles is essential.
Here are the top five factors to consider when buying commercial vehicles.
1. Your Budget
As a business, you’re always going to be thinking about your bottom line. The “best” commercial vehicle options could be too impractical from a budgetary perspective.
Getting this first step right is essential. Before you even think about purchasing, sketch out your commercial vehicle budget. This gives you the confidence to make the right choices for your budget.
2. Vehicle Size
If you’re purchasing commercial vehicles, size is an essential consideration for many reasons.
The most obvious is that a vehicle’s size will dictate its cargo space when you’re choosing a truck for deliveries. Larger vehicles allow for more efficient delivery in some industries, as you can reduce the overall number of trips per delivery.
There are also other considerations, with one of the biggest being storage. The larger your vehicles, the bigger the garage facilities you’re likely to need to keep them safe. While large vehicles may seem efficient, you’ll need to keep the square foot expense of garaging in mind.
3. Matching the Job
A vehicle is a tool, and, as with all tools, you want the right one for the job. While that may sound obvious, you need to come at this from multiple angles. Even non-obvious factors like a vehicle’s height could impact your operations.
For instance, if you’re choosing a sweeper truck, the size and shape of your lot is going to be a key factor. The “best” sweeper truck could be a complete mismatch for the space, despite its specs.
4. Ease of Maintenance
While a vehicle fleet has a multitude of running costs, maintenance becomes one of the key considerations over time. The longer you run your fleet, the more likely you are to see maintenance issues arise.
This should influence your initial purchase in two ways: you want vehicles that are robust enough to be a business workhorse, while also being cheap enough to repair or replace when they do finally break down.
5. Fuel Efficiency
As another ongoing cost, the overall fuel efficiency of your vehicles will compound over time. The less efficient your vehicle, the more you lose on every single trip—which can add up to staggering sums over the years.
So choosing vehicles with high fuel efficiency can be vital for the long-term financial health of your company. Fuel-efficient vehicles are also resilient to changes in vehicle emissions laws that could otherwise force the replacement of your fleet.
Buying Commerical Vehicles the Right Way
With these tips, you can avoid the common mistakes made when buying commercial vehicles and outfit your business the right way. Getting this right will have a major impact on your bottom line, so take the time to get it right.
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