Delivery contracts with big stores — how drivers really get them

Checked October 2026

The short answer: a single box truck driver almost never signs a contract with Lowe's, Home Depot, or a furniture chain directly. The store signs one big contract with a delivery company — a final-mile carrier — and that company hires owner operators to run the routes. The door you want is not the store. It is the delivery company holding the store's contract in your city.

How the chain actually works

When a customer buys a refrigerator at a big store, the store does not send its own truck. Its contract carrier — companies in the final-mile world — schedules the delivery, routes it, and answers for it. The carrier staffs its warehouse with owner operators: your truck, your insurance, their freight. The same chain runs furniture chains, appliance stores, and mattress companies: the brand the customer sees is the store; the company that hires you is the carrier behind it.

Why drivers get this wrong

Because the truck in the driveway wears the store's delivery promise, it feels like the store is the customer. Drivers call store managers and contractor desks that cannot hire them, and hear "we don't do that here" — which is true, and useless. The hiring desk sits at the carrier's warehouse across town, and the person who keeps the driver list works there.

What the carrier asks for

The store's standards ride down the chain: a 26-foot truck with a liftgate, a helper for two-person deliveries, insurance at the carrier's limits, background checks, a clean and presentable truck, and careful work in customers' homes — the customer rates the delivery, and the rating flows back to the store. Our requirements guide lists the set in plain words.

The second door: independent and regional stores

Not every store is a giant. Regional furniture and appliance stores often run their own delivery or hire local firms directly, and those doors open to a driver who walks in with his facts straight. They are fewer routes than the giant chains' — and far less fought over. Both kinds of door are in this book, city by city, with the person to call.