Operations

How to cut van diesel cost: route planning for distributors

Work out your delivery cost per shop and per ₹100 sold, then cut it: fixed beats by area, a sensible driving order, fewer visits to small shops, and bigger bills.

4 October 2026 · 6 min read

Short answer

Diesel goes up when vans zig-zag and visit shops that buy too little. Put nearby shops into fixed beats on fixed days, drive them in a sensible order, visit small shops less often, and track cost per shop for every van. You cannot cut what you do not measure.

Diesel, the driver’s wage and the helper’s wage are paid every day the van goes out, whether the van sells ₹20,000 or ₹80,000. So the question is not only “how much diesel did we use?” It is “how much did it cost us to serve each shop?”

First, measure your cost per shop

For one van, for one normal day, add up:

Diesel
Driver and helper wages for the day
Tolls, parking and any loading charges

Example: ₹1,800 diesel + ₹1,400 wages + ₹100 other = ₹3,300 a day. 30 shops billed = ₹110 per shop. Sales ₹66,000 = ₹5 for every ₹100 sold.

Now you have a number to improve. Do the same for every van, every week. The van with the highest cost per ₹100 sold is the one to fix first.

Five ways to cut it

Map your shops
by area, not by habit
Fixed beats
one area per day
Sensible order
no zig-zag
Right visit frequency
small shops less often
Track every week
cost per shop

Most savings come from planning the week, not from driving faster.

1. Put nearby shops on the same day

Many routes grew one shop at a time: a new shop was added to whichever van had space. The result is a Monday route that crosses town twice. Sit with a map once, group shops by area, and give each area a fixed day. Our guide on beat planning for a small distributor walks through it.

2. Drive the shops in a sensible order

Start from the far end and work back towards the godown, or the other way round, but do not zig-zag. Let the salesman suggest the order: he knows the one-way streets and the shops that only open after 11.

3. Visit small shops less often

A shop that buys ₹600 a week does not need a van stop every week. Try every two weeks, or take its order by phone and deliver with the next van passing by. See van sales or pre-sales for when order booking makes more sense than selling off the van.

4. Raise the bill size, not the number of trips

The same diesel serves a ₹2,000 bill and a ₹6,000 bill. Selling a few more lines in each shop cuts your cost per ₹100 sold without driving an extra kilometre. See how a salesman sells more in the same shop.

5. Track it every week

Write down each van’s diesel, shops billed and sales every day. When cost per shop jumps on one route, ask why: a new shop added far away, a road closed, or a van that needs a service.

Small things that add up

Load the van the night before, so it leaves on time and avoids the worst traffic.
Keep tyres at the right pressure and get the van serviced on schedule.
Do not send a second van to a shop that a first van passed an hour ago.
Settle disputes and returns on the regular visit, not with a special trip.

How Mulberry Sales helps

Each weekday can have its own shop list, so beats are fixed by day. Route optimisation puts today’s shops in a visiting order, starting from where the salesman is, and opens the route in Google Maps (Business plan). It uses shops that have a saved location and measures straight-line distance, not road distance, so the salesman’s knowledge of the roads still counts; shops with no saved location are listed separately. The live map shows where each clocked-in salesman is right now (Growth plan and up), and reports break sales down by salesman and day, which gives you the “sales” half of cost per ₹100 sold (Growth plan and up). See van sales software.

Questions people ask

How can a distributor reduce diesel cost on van routes?

Group shops by area into fixed beats, visit each area on a fixed day, drive the shops in a sensible order instead of zig-zagging, cut visits to tiny shops that can be served less often, and track diesel per day for each van so you can see when a route gets worse.

How do I calculate delivery cost per shop?

Add up the day's diesel, driver and helper wages and any tolls for one van, then divide by the number of shops billed that day. Divide the same cost by the day's sales to get the cost per ₹100 sold.

Should a van visit every shop every week?

Not always. Big shops may need two visits a week; small shops that buy little can often be visited every two weeks or served by phone order and next-day delivery. Match the visit frequency to what the shop buys.

Found this problem in your business?

Don't estimate it. Run one van on Mulberry Sales for 14 days with your own shops, products and salesman, and measure it. One price covers your whole business, not each salesman.

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