Offering Local Delivery: Process Cost and Scheduling

The buyer wants the minivan. They have two car seats and no ride to your lot. They are forty minutes away. In the Marketplace thread they write, "If you can bring it to me this week, I'll take it." The rep says yes because the unit is aged. Nobody prices the driver, the fuel, the second person, or the two hours out of the sales day. The van goes out with one porter, a temp tag in the window, and a handshake in a driveway. Offering local delivery — process, cost, and scheduling — is what should have happened before that yes.

Local delivery is a product, not a favor. Done well, it closes online buyers who cannot easily visit. Done as an improvisation, it creates unpaid labor, insurance questions, and condition disputes with no lot camera in the background. You do not need to offer it. If you do offer it, write the radius, the fee, who drives, and how handover works, then train the floor to quote that system instead of inventing one per chat.

This guide is for general managers, used-car managers, and internet directors. It covers how to set radius and cost, how to qualify a delivery request, how to schedule and staff the run, and how to hand over at the buyer's location. This is operational guidance, not legal advice. Confirm insurance, transporter, title, and off-lot delivery rules with counsel and your carriers.

Decide the Local Delivery Radius, Fee, and Who Drives

If those three are not written, every rep will give a different answer.

Radius

Pick a service area you can staff on a weekday without wrecking the floor. A tight county radius is a policy. "We'll go wherever" is how a porter ends up two hours away at dusk. Outside that radius, use your out-of-state and shipping process or decline. Do not stretch "local" until it is transport without a transport contract.

Who is allowed to drive

• Employees who are on the approved driver list for your commercial policy
• A second person for the return ride, unless you have a documented one-person method your insurer already accepted
• No "my cousin will follow in his car" as the official plan

If your policy requires two people, the delivery is not cheaper when you skip the second person. It is uninsured heroics.

When you will not deliver

Write the no's:

• Cash in a parking lot
• After dark in an unlit location
• Buyer cannot produce insurance proof at the meeting
• Title or plates path not complete
• Location outside the radius
• One-person crew when your rule is two

A posted no is easier to defend in chat than a last-minute cancellation.

Qualify the Delivery Request Before You Quote

Not every "can you bring it?" is a sold unit. Qualify like a desk, then quote.

Minimum facts

• Exact delivery address and whether it is home, work, or a public place you will accept
• Preferred windows
• Who will be there to sign and take keys
• Insurance proof they can show on site
• Payment already completed or a funding path that does not involve collecting a cashier's check on a curb
• Any gate, HOA, or apartment constraint

If they still need a test drive, local delivery is the wrong product. Offer a lot visit, a video walk, or a third-party inspection first.

Do not use delivery to skip the deal

Structure, funding, and disclosures still happen under your normal signing method. Delivery is logistics after (or tightly coordinated with) a real close. If they have not bought the car, you are not a free taxi for a maybe.

Public meeting points

Some stores will only deliver to the buyer's residence or to the lot. Some will use a police-station parking lot. Pick what your safety policy allows. Marketplace buyers who want a grocery-store handover may be trying to stay private, or they may be a problem. When in doubt, keep it at a location your manager would send their own staff to.

Costing a Delivery Without Hiding It

If delivery has a cost, put it in the quote the same way you put a documentation fee: named, not buried.

What the fee should cover, internally

• Driver time both ways
• Fuel or energy
• Second person
• Wear and opportunity cost of two staff off the floor
• Tag, fuel, and wash so the car arrives as advertised

You do not need to itemize that for the customer. You do need to stop giving it away on a $9,000 aged unit because a rep wanted a yes.

How to say it in chat

• "Local delivery inside our posted area is $X, scheduled on weekdays. That is in addition to the vehicle price. If you pick up here, that charge does not apply."
• If you include delivery in a specific promotion, say the geography and the expiry. Do not let a weekend ad become a permanent entitlement.

Do not call it free and then recover it in a pack. That is how chat quotes and paperwork diverge.

Who can waive it

Managers, in writing, on aged units or VIP deals. Reps cannot trade the fee for a five-star review.

Local Delivery Scheduling, Route, and Two-Person Policy

Offering local delivery — process, cost, and scheduling — lives or dies on the calendar.

Build delivery like a signing slot

• Date and a window, not "sometime after lunch"
• Vehicle prepared: fueled, clean, tagged, charged if EV
• Packet, keys, and spare
• Driver pair assigned
• Buyer confirmation the morning of
• Buffer for traffic and a failed first attempt

Do not sandwich a delivery between two lot appointments and hope. The pre-transport checklist is overkill for a forty-minute run, but the idea is the same: the car should be ready before it leaves.

Route discipline

• Share the live window when you leave the lot
• No extra stops, no "while we're out" personal errands
• Weather and daylight gates
• A call if you will miss the window by more than your grace period

If they are not there

Wait your published grace period. Then return to the lot with the car. Do not leave a vehicle. Do not hide keys. Bill a wasted run only if that fee was disclosed. Reschedule once. Repeat no-shows end the delivery offer and revert to lot pickup.

Handover at the Buyer's Location

The driveway is still a delivery. Use the same delivery handover checklist, adapted for the site.

On-site sequence

1. Confirm identity against the contract
2. Confirm insurance proof
3. Walk the car together, photograph condition
4. Count keys
5. Short feature demo
6. Hand documents
7. Do not collect unstructured cash
8. Leave only when the buyer has accepted the car under your process

If they reject the car on sight, do not argue in the street. Follow the written unwind: return to the lot, manager call, deposit rules that already exist. The second person is also a witness.

Safety

Meet in view of the house or a public lot you approved. Keep phones charged. If the situation feels wrong, leave with the vehicle. No deal is worth a staff member in a driveway they cannot defend.

How PostToMarket Automates This

Local delivery goes wrong when a rep promises a drop-off on a unit that is not sold, not prepped, or still live for other buyers. PostToMarket does not dispatch drivers or price fuel. It keeps inventory status, listing language, and the owner of the lead together so a delivery yes is about a real, available car.

Only deliver what is actually sold and prepped

• Statuses of draft, posting, posted, sold, and failed, so a maybe in chat is not treated like a dispatched unit.
• Mark as sold and archive when the deal is done, so you are not delivering one minivan while Marketplace still takes appointments on it.
• AI-generated copy, editable before posting, so "we deliver anywhere, anytime" is not sitting in a template.

One owner for the logistics thread

• Per-rep queues and team queue view so a manager can see who promised the Wednesday window.
• Managers assign associate queues; sales reps self-queue. Associates should not be dispatching porters.
• Roles keep posting-only staff from quoting a radius you do not serve.

Managers see the request before the van leaves

• Leads inbox for conversations that asked for delivery.
• Mobile dashboard on a phone's home screen, so a used-car manager can approve or kill a run between customers.
• Team analytics by rep and source when delivery promises cluster on certain posters.
• Bulk CSV/Excel import with error logs so the VIN, stock, and address notes are not retyped from a messy DMS dump on the morning of the run.

PostToMarket is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Meta. No tool can guarantee listing distribution or a safe driveway handover. It reduces the operational mistakes that turn a logistics product into a free errand.

Quote a System, Not a Favor

Offering local delivery — process, cost, and scheduling — means a radius, a named fee, approved drivers, a two-person rule if that is your policy, and a handover as strict as the one on your lot. Qualify the request, put the cost in the chat, schedule a window, and walk the car where it arrives. The "yes" in Messenger should be a yes to that system.

PostToMarket will not put fuel in the tank. It will keep the inventory and the thread from promising a drop-off on a car you cannot release. Starter is $59 per month for a solo seller with one login. Dealership is $299 per month for up to 13 logins, which is what you need if a manager has to approve every run off the lot.

Start your 10-day free trial through secure Stripe checkout. Import the units you can actually deliver, assign owners, and let the next forty-minute request get a radius and a price instead of a shrug. Cancel anytime.