The USPS won’t receive EVs from Oshkosh until June 2024, nine months behind schedule, which was revealed in a court document related to lawsuits against the USPS and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. A raft of attorneys general and environmental groups threaten to seek removal of a litigation stay if any more gas-powered vehicles are purchased before an environmental review is completed.
The USPS said its projected loss by 2030 has been cut from $160 billion to $70 billion, adding it still expects to reach break-even by then, even factoring in $3 billion in inflationary costs. It also touted a number of other milestones two years into its overhaul plan. At the same time, APWU union leadership called for a series of protests across the nation over USPS service issues and increasing workforce turnover.
A new testing protocol to gauge the protective qualities of ecommerce packaging has been released by the International Safe Transit Association to help retailers, brands and partners ensure proper packaging design that can withstand the rigors of handling along the ecommerce/DTC chain. It addresses the fact that traditional retail packaging is often not up to the task of protection.
UPS continues to see volume declines impacting results, as it steps up automation and finds other ways to drive greater efficiency in order to offset the decline, which helped boost revenue per piece in the first quarter even with the volume falloff. The company also remains confident of a Teamsters settlement, while working overtime to retain business and keeping a contingency plan at hand.
A small group of drivers for an Amazon delivery contractor in California has joined the Teamsters union, the first fruits of a concerted effort by the country’s most powerful union to organize workers at the massive ecommerce company both inside and outside its warehouses. Amazon said the DSP employing them had been terminated some time before the Teamsters announcement for performance reasons.
The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) has ordered a public review of various aspects of the U.S. Postal Service’s ten-year overhaul plan, including consolidating sort and delivery operations into regional centers, opening up public input on the impact of the changes. The PRC will issue information requests to the USPS about proposed network changes as part of the Delivering for America plan.
Grocers are increasingly concerned with the impact of the digital age on customer loyalty, as options have proliferated and made it easier for shoppers to cross over to competitors, according to a new report from Incisiv, The Food Industry Association (FMI) and Loyal Guru. About 75% of grocers said e-grocery has made shoppers less loyal, while 71% report that improving loyalty is a C-level issue.
FedEx provided details on its plan to consolidate its Ground, Express and Service units by 2024, announced last year, with its less-than-truckload Freight unit remaining separate, projecting cost savings of $4 billion by 2025 and an additional $2 billion in network efficiencies by 2027. The consolidation, undoing the legacy of founder and executive chairman Fred Smith, will cost an estimated $2 billion, FedEx said.
Ryder System Inc. plans to purchase 4,000 light-duty electric vans for its rental, leasing and dedicated fleets from General Motors-owned BrightDrop by 2025, with its first order of 200 vehicles going into service this year, as it looks to meet customer EV demand and keep up with various state mandates.
FedEx saw the biggest U.S. parcel volume falloff in 2022, Pitney Bowes reported, and while overall volume last year was down by 2.2%, the pandemic bump in ecommerce helped it outpace the 2019 projection, hitting the target a year early. The CAGR for parcel volume growth from 2023-2028 is projected to be halved, from 10.8% to 5%.