With the new U.S. Postal Service rates in effect, shippers are looking for creative ways to keep their parcel spend down as costs among the major carriers continue to rise. Find out what the increases mean and hear what some industry experts have to say about the impacts.
In another whack at porch piracy, UPS is expanding an in-home delivery service through smart lock partner Latch to 10 additional cities, after successful tests in New York and San Francisco. It will be available later this year in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Miami and Seattle.
FedEx has created a new program to address demand for faster fulfillment of online orders by offering later pickup. Extra Hours lets retailers expand their pickup cutoff by up to eight hours to more easily offer next-day local delivery or two-day delivery anywhere in the continental U.S. via FedEx Express.
The big three domestic parcel carriers – UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service – continued to perform admirably in the midst of the torrent of holiday peak season packages, delivering ecommerce orders on time at a rate of 97% or higher, according to data from Shipmatrix.
FedEx is testing the use of autonomous tugs to transport items within its sortation and distribution facilities in an effort to handle the growing volume of bulky ecommerce orders more efficiently. See what other types of automation the carrier is using to optimize the massive flow of packages through its network at peak.
Less than three weeks before the new prices take effect the day after Christmas, UPS announced its 2019 rate schedule, including an overall increase of 4.9% for its ground, air and international services, leaving shippers scrambling to adapt at the busiest time of year. See what charges went up and what it means.
Deutsche Post unit DHL Supply Chain North America is investing $300 million to increase the level of automation and robotics at 350 of its 430 facilities, to better handle the crush of ecommerce orders. DHL also plans to open a 24,000-square-foot innovation center near Chicago in September 2019.
UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service got virtually all packages delivered on time over Cyber Weekend, according to an annual analysis conducted by Shipmatrix based on its shipper data, achieving the highest overall marks since 2013.
FedEx announced a 4.9% general rate increase (GRI), matching increases from both itself and UPS in recent years. As each carrier will target different increases in their rates between services, weights and zones to net the overall average increase, here’s a deep dive look at how the FedEx GRI breaks down among its shipping services.
FedEx has announced its general rate increases for 2019, bumping up its ground, express and home delivery services by an average of 4.9% as of Jan. 7, while also adding some holiday season surcharges and increasing others next year. Rival UPS has yet to announce its 2019 rates.