More transport & storage firms have run out of cash reserves than any other sector, says Parcelhero
A concerning 31.5% of transportation & storage sector firms have told the ONS they have no cash reserves this month. That’s a higher number of cash-strapped firms than any other sector, warns the home delivery expert Parcelhero.
Shock results from the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) Business Insights survey reveal that 31.5% of transportation & storage sector companies have no cash reserves this month. The transportation & storage sector is the category that includes logistics, parcels, haulage and warehousing firms. It now has a significantly higher number of companies with no cash reserves than any other industry, cautions the home delivery expert Parcelhero.
Parcelhero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks M.I.L.T. says: ‘From 1-14 June, UK businesses were quizzed by the ONS about their cash reserves. The results should be a major cause for concern for the transport & storage sector. A hefty 31.5% of transport & storage firms classed as “not permanently stopped trading” had no cash reserves in the first weeks of June. To put that in perspective, that’s a 7.6 percentage point difference between this sector and the nearest others reporting they are out of cash. Both the struggling education and construction sectors report 23.9% of companies have no cash reserves.
‘To see just how significant this result is, it’s eye-opening to compare the figure with that of the transport sector’s partner companies in manufacturing and retail. Just 15.2% of retailers and an even lower 13.3% of manufacturers said their businesses had no cash reserves.
‘The bad news for the cash-strapped transport & storage sector doesn’t stop there. A further 6.7% of firms in the sector say they have less than a month’s cash reserves left. In addition, 14.2% say they have only one to three months cash reserves, the lowest for all business sectors except the arts.
‘The situation is put into perspective when compared to the same survey held in April this year. Back then, 26.6% of transport & storage firms had run out of cash – so that’s a rise of nearly 5 percentage points in just two months. Furthermore, the sector didn’t come at the foot of the table for cash reserves in April. At that time, 27.9% of construction firms revealed they had nothing left in their pockets.
‘However, this isn’t the first time Parcelhero has reported on the parlous state of the transport & storage sector’s cash reserves. Around a year ago, in July 2025, we flagged up that 31.3% of transport & storage firms had run out of cash in June. This was just 0.2 percentage points less than this year. Again, the sector was bottom of the table in terms of cash reserves. Although construction was close behind at 29.4%. This year, the gap between the number of transport & storage sector companies running out of cash and the nearest other sectors is far wider.
‘One certainty is that it will be those transport & storage companies that are partnered with retailers with strong in-store and online sales that will ultimately triumph. Parcelhero has just released “2030: The High Street Fights Back?“, a follow-up to its widely read 2016 report “2030: The Death of the High Street”. The new report explores how e-commerce growth and disruptions like the pandemic have reshaped town centres over the past decade. Its central finding is that, while the High Street is unlikely to vanish by 2030, it faces a defining moment of transformation. The full report is available at https://newsroom.parcelhero.com/the-high-street-fights-back-final.pdf
