Why Decor Hire Delivery Fees Are Not Standard Flat Fees

When you hire furniture, lighting and other decorations for your special event, one of the things you need to build into your event budget is allocating fees for delivery and pickup costs - and in many cases, you won't know what they are until you enquire.

Why don't hire companies know what the delivery fees are already and just charge you a flat rate like Harvey Norman does?

Remember: every event hire, venue and customer's needs for what they're going to hire will be different.

Delivery costs generally include the cost and time taken of travel going to and from the warehouse, petrol, eTag tolls, and staff wages to pack, set-up and install, return, pack-down and collect. 

• Your event is on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday
• Your delivery address is more than 20km from the hire warehouse
• It will take a lot of staff. Just think: the hire company people have to pay two or more employees to load the items at the warehouse, drive to the venue, unload at the venue, set up and install, and drive back to base, waiting until they need to return, get back in the van and drive back, pack down, load up the van and drive back yet again to the warehouse
• Your venue requires your item/s to be collected by 11pm, midnight or 1am as this creates staff overtime charges
• You have large multiple quantities of the item which would take time to load and unload, such as event hire Tiffany chairs
• Your item is particularly delicate and fragile, so the supplier wants to take responsibility to deliver and install these
• Your item takes time to be constructed and/or installed, such as pallet crate food stands.

• Your event is on Monday to Friday 
• Your event is during business hours
• Your supplier allows you to pick them up yourself
• Your item/s are small enough to fit in your car without needing to get a ute or van

However, if the items are big AND you are allowed to collect them, check your car measurements.  If your car is not big enough, you'll need to borrow or hire a ute or van.

Should you hire or borrow a ute or van for your event hire items?

• Do you plan to collect everything you can from hire companies in one ute or van? Is that even possible with the number of items you want? Are they all dry (aka DIY) hire?
• Do you know how to safely wrap and secure the items so they don't get damaged? Otherwise you could lose your bond.
• If you can collect the items, have you compared costs? You're unlikely to beat a $100 or even a $200 delivery fee by the hire company.
• Consider that you will need to hire your own ute or van for four hours or more, pay for petrol and tolls, plus collect, load, deliver, install, reload and deliver your hired items to the hire company.
• Therefore, if it's your event, you can't drink if you have to pack up and drive the hire items away at the end of the night.
• Even if your delivery fee costs hundreds of dollars thanks to the size and/or sheer quantity of hire items and distance of venue, it is often cheaper and easier to get your event hire company to deliver and pickup - and it lets you enjoy your party, too.

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