How SN Transports built their logistics empire from the ground up

SN Transports set up shop in 2018. Back then, the company’s only employees were managing director Arbaz Saadat and his uncle. The pair joined CX shortly after their business began, initially operating with just one van.  

Four years on, things have changed. SN Transports has grown into a formidable 20 truck-and-van fleet. They now operate on the Haulage Exchange – and are known as one of the biggest transport businesses in Lancashire.  

Just this year, SN Transports have made 219 times their renewal price. Arbaz talks us through his journey since joining.

Approach 

Arbaz first learned about the Exchange through a friend.

After taking a leap of faith, Arbaz partnered with his uncle, taking on deliveries part-time. But after a month or so, Arbaz began to see possibilities in building his courier business on CX – and later HX – full-time. 

He adds, “I knew there would be potential from the beginning. Still, it was hard to build a network at first. I had to take cheap work at the beginning. Honestly, if people think it’s easy, it’s not. You have to build your own business and network.” 

And, after a few months, Arbaz started to make “excellent cashflow” from his business. 

Results

Arbaz started with one van. His goal was to grow into a small fleet of three or four. What he didn’t expect was the massive and rapid success he’s seen since joining the platform four years ago. 

“Now we have twenty vehicles in our fleet, trucks and vans. I didn’t expect to have so many. I didn’t expect to get an office, a yard, and a storage facility either. Nothing like that,” he admits. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve progressed in this industry.” 

When asked about the key to his success, Arbaz credits giving his clients a good service. SN Transports boasts 3669 positive feedback on delivery and 220 positive feedback for on-time payments.  

“We don’t have any neutral or negative feedback. At all,” Arbaz affirms. “We give our clients a good service and it’s that simple.” 

Conclusion 

Arbaz has made a significant name on the Exchange, growing from a man with a van working on the Exchange part-time to “one of the biggest transport companies in Lancashire.” 

While he admits the first few months on CX weren’t easy money, Arbaz also asserts that it was well worth it in the end, touting the Exchange as a “life-changing platform.” 

The Exchange is where Arbaz grew his network and exposed his business to big names. It’s where he learnt how to build his logistics empire.  

Arbaz’s parting words showcase his gratitude.  He thanks God for how far he’s come, how many people he’s able to support with a steady income, and his own courage in taking a leap on the Exchange five years ago.

Ready to see how you can build your business on HX?

ASA Express delivers goods, across the UK, for B2B customers. In fact, they’ve been delivering goods for 19 years now – so they’re no strangers to the transport industry. 

Seeing a lot of dead miles on their backload journeys, Managing Director, Pele Binning, decided his business would benefit from joining HX in October 2022. HX offered a quick and easy solution to reducing ASA’s dead miles during drivers’ return journeys back home. 

Since being on HX for seven months now, ASA have a revenue thirty-six times their initial investment. 

Approach

ASA joined HX because it was a business requirement: they needed to dilute the cost of overheads and fuel on their return journeys. 

Pele explains, “We’ve always delivered outbound, but we needed inbound traffic for our trucks coming back home empty. [With HX], customers now pay us to bring their product, even though we’re just coming back home.” 

Results

In just over seven months Pele is pleased to report he has reduced company dead miles by completing 296 more haulage return loads on HX.

Since joining, ASA Express have built contacts with new suppliers – and now, just under a quarter of their revenue comes from direct bookings. What started as a business requirement to reduce “dead miles” has generated a significant profit and several new suppliers. 

He also doubles down on the security of HX: “One of the main things we love about the Exchange is how users are all verified. We want to keep our business clean and free of scammers.”

Conclusion 

Pele is pleased with his results. His company’s dead miles are low, his return on investment is high and his team receive continuous help, support, and training on the platform.

“You must apply the man hours. Be on the Exchange every day and put in the work – you’ll see the best results that way,” he adds, as a word of encouragement. 

Ready to see how HX can help reduce your “dead miles”?

Polish company, Virtus Logistics, is a transport company with over 150 drivers that operate all over Europe. After building regular contracts with drivers across the UK – both subcontractors and their own drivers – they decided to join HX in February 2023 to better control and expand their business. 

After only 2 months of operating on HX, Virtus has already generated a revenue of five times their initial investment. UK Account Manager, Robert Lakomski, talks about these past few months. 

Approach

Virtus Logistics already had established business in the UK. However, as Robert quickly realised, Virtus needed to operate on a reputable and protected platform to properly manage the vast quantity of UK drivers and subcontractors they employed. 

In effort to stay on top of bookings, Virtus has also utilised the features HX offers. One way is by integrating a HX-partnered tracking software, to better track drivers and subcontractors while they complete their bookings.

He also doubles down on the security of HX: “One of the main things we love about the Exchange is how users are all verified. We want to keep our business clean and free of scammers.”

Results 

Within just two months on HX, Robert realised he didn’t need other logistics platforms

Now HX is Virtus’s main tool for loading trucks in the UK. “HX has helped grow our business significantly within the UK.” He adds that HX is “better than other UK platforms” because his drivers find regular work, quickly and easily. 

The results speak for themselves. Since joining, Virtus Logistics have collaborated with over twenty logistics partners. And, in the two months they’ve been on the platform, they’ve secured 457% return on investment (ROI)

Conclusion

In the space of a couple of months, Virtus has collaborated with new partners, integrated telematics to optimise their business, and made a hefty profit. Robert’s parting words of encouragement are happy and hopeful for the future:

Ready to see how you can build your business on HX?

Established 35 years ago, Falcon Print Transport has gone from strength to strength building an enviable customer portfolio. However, recognising the dangers of being so exposed to just one market, the company’s Managing Director, Ryan Wicks decided to join Haulage Exchange in order to further broaden Falcon’s horizons.

Based in Stratford, East London, Falcon recognised that because much of its business comprised dedicated time critical loads, its fleet of 20 vehicles which range from small vans to 26 tonnes were massively under-utilised with 95% of vehicles driving back empty.

Since joining the Exchange, Falcon has seen business grow massively, opening up a host of new opportunities for the company.

Ryan Wicks cannot speak highly enough of the Exchange and the impact on the business. “It’s been amazing,” he said. “Whilst we still have a thriving business in print, the Exchange has given us a new direction marking a new chapter in Falcon’s history.

Now an established member with a reputation for providing exemplary levels of haulage customer service, Falcon is often approached directly for their delivery services.

Nevertheless, every transaction is managed by the Exchange together with all invoicing which Ryan says is a major advantage. “The fact that the Exchange can manage the administrative function is a big plus. It means our staff are not burdened with the task, but more importantly the Exchange works on a 30 day payment basis which provides us with a steady flow of income which in turn aids cashflow.”

The business flow is not however all one way. Falcon Print Transport also takes advantage of the benefits the Exchange can do for its own work, for example if they needed specialist haulage vehicles for a particular job. Ryan Wicks continued: “It’s a win win for everyone. The fact that we have access to each and every one of the Exchange’s members means that whatever request a customer may have, the likelihood is that we will be able to meet that need fast.

“Additionally the new work we are doing has opened up a lot of local business which was a first for us. That said it has been hugely successful and has produced so much revenue that it equates to a couple of clients put together.”

He concluded: “I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending the Exchange. It really has given us a tremendous boost to our business and has provided a strong platform which will enable us to continue to grow and develop.”

Falcon Print Transport has recently taken advantage of an agreement between the Exchange and TomTom Telematics that enables the company to use live data from the WEBFLEET tracking system. By integrating the fleet telematics technology with the freight trading platform, Falcon Print is now able to better promote the availability of 10 vehicles within its owned transport fleet, as well as provide added peace of mind to its trading partners.

Meanwhile, trading partners can also use the live tracking data to view the whereabouts and progress of their loads whilst in transit to provide added visibility and peace of mind.

“We can now quickly and efficiently show where a particular vehicle is to demonstrate we are delivering on our service promise. Sometimes it is important to prove we are doing the job properly and the integration is the simplest way of achieving this.”

Mark Fitzjohn on how the Exchange is making a difference to the Royal Mail’s Courier Services team:

“Providing an industry-leading Same Day Courier Service – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year – is not easy. The market is fast moving, highly competitive and exceptionally demanding, due to the growing online presence of retailers, and the changing dynamics of B2B commerce. Our same day business has always worked hard to overcome these challenges by listening to our customers. Our marketing slogan ‘Fast, Reliable, Now,’ sums up in three words what it is that they want, and we aim to pick-up 98 percent of collections within the hour.”

However, with demand for our services at record levels, we have found recently that our large fleet of Royal Mail subcontractors are at full capacity. Secondly, the industry has become crowded and in some areas – but by no means all – rates have been squeezed.

To stay ahead of our rivals, we’ve incorporated Courier and Haulage Exchange – the UK’s leading freight exchange platforms – into our freight operations. The platforms are proving invaluable to our service team, who look after our same day customers. In one swoop, it has enabled us to meet our customer’s extra capacity demands and, most importantly, gives them the option of a cheaper same-day despatch service.

Our eight operational staff have had access to the Exchange for just over two months now, and during that time they’ve used the platform to post around 250 loads on the Exchange. But this is just the start. With 7.5 tonne trucks in great demand, we also hope to use the platform to boost haulage capacity too.

At the moment, our despatchers are using it during standard business hours, but in the future, we expect that staff serving our overnight customers will have access to CX and HX too, which will no doubt ratchet up our presence on the platform considerably.

I think the best thing about the Exchange is that is gives us and our customers a little more control over pricing. Nine times out of ten, HX will generate a cheaper price for a load than we can offer. Our customers have also been impressed by the high standards of service delivered by Exchange subcontractors, which is maintained by regular real-time feedback and delivered to drivers on a job-by job basis.

While it’s Royal Mail policy not to provide feedback to drivers, when a customer calls us and asks us to find them an HX member to carry their load, we always review a driver’s feedback in the first instance. Only when we’re confident that we’ve found a courier driver who will deliver the consignment in a timely and professional manner, do we take price into account. And as the platform always ensures that the customer receives a competitive price for the job, more often than not, they end up paying less for the journey.

Technology is key too. To be honest, as we haven’t been using HX for long, we’ve not been fully utilising all of the features. However, we find the Freight Vision live tracking software, which lets us track HX couriers and post updates to customers, the most useful technology. As we begin to use HX more extensively, I have no doubt that we’ll use features such as Quote Manager – which manages the whole booking process online rather than by phone – to help us boost efficiency and productivity.

Finally, while meeting pricing and capacity demands were our main reasons for subscribing to the CX and HX platforms, as a national parcel delivery provider, we also recognise the importance of operating a sustainable freight model. We believe that in the future – with emissions reduction such a hot topic right now freight exchanges platforms – which cut empty miles – can play a part in helping us and our customers lower their carbon footprint.”