Some national and international courier companies are so well known that they are household names. Yet this doesn't mean they offer a better service than their smaller, locally based, lesser-known rivals.

Smaller couriers often win contracts against the big global companies based on the service they provide, as they are very agile meaning they can respond to unusual requests and turn them around quickly.

Corporate clients use smaller courier firms because they don't combine their packages with parcels from other businesses in multi-drop vans.

Small, local firms can have an edge when it comes to keeping their customers happy. If you use a local courier service they will likely be a small business and the chances are they will deal much better with your products, rather than throwing them down a conveyor to be sorted automatically.

Local couriers can be more flexible than their large, national counterparts about what they will collect, and when and where they will collect it.

National couriers have very strict requirements for the parcels they deliver, for example, very few will transport anything over the size of a big carton.”

The changing nature of the market means that what ostensibly might appear to be a large delivery company is really a network of smaller firms. For example, Amazon has its own logistics business. From the outside, it looks like a huge operation with thousands of couriers across the UK. But the reality is that it is hundreds of companies, all operating locally with one, two or three vans.