In an effort to attract more business from SMB ecommerce shippers, UPS and FedEx continue to expand their competitive offerings in flat-rate shipping, offering more options, customization and economy. Such programs aren’t as economically attractive to large enterprise shippers with their volume-based discounts.
The U.S. Postal Service is projecting it will handle 800 million packages between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, a drop from both 2018 and 2017. Sunday delivery will be expanded beginning Nov. 24 to high-volume urban locations, with projections of over 8 million package deliveries on Sundays in December.
For many years, UPS and FedEx were in virtual lockstep on pricing and service offerings. That is until the past couple years, when they’ve begun to diverge as they seek to differentiate and carve out different market strategies. Mark Taylor of enVista discusses these changes as part of an MCM CommerceChat podcast.
With shipping and delivery such a critical piece of the customer experience in ecommerce, you need to choose the right carrier partner – or partners – that meet your business needs and fit your budget. Hear from shippers about how they determine the best fit and mix of service level and cost, and how they work with their carrier partners.
UPS is projecting a 26% increase on “national returns day” on Jan. 2, when 1.9 million inbound packages are expected to hit its network as Q4 ecommerce continues to balloon. Another somewhat smaller returns peak of 1.6 million packages/day will hit the week of Dec. 16; the daily average that month will be 1 million, UPS said.
Warehouse and fulfillment center giant Prologis will acquire rival Liberty Property Trust in an all-stock merger valued at $12.68 billion, the companies announced, greatly expanding Prologis’ U.S. logistics holdings as demand continues to ramp up. This is in addition to Prologis’ 2018 acquisition of DCT Industrial Trust for $8.4 billion.
Stamps.com, which had been struggling since ending its long-term partnership with the U.S. Parcel Service in February, has been buoyed by a new deal with UPS. As part of the deal, Stamps.com’s 740,000 shipper customers can get discounts up to 55% off standard UPS rates and relief from surcharges.
The U.S. Postal Service is calling for rate increases of up to 6.3% for its parcel shipping products in 2020, which are being reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC). The USPS is hoping increased rates will partially offset volume declines as UPS, FedEx and Amazon are all diverting volume to their own networks to save costs.
The UPU on Wednesday approved a compromise plan that will let countries set their own inbound postal rates, avoiding a threatened pullout by the U.S. that would have caused shipping chaos ahead of the peak holiday season. The U.S. can begin imposing self-declared rates next July, with others following in 2021.
More than 6% of 508,000 FedEx and UPS parcels shipped by 100 small-to-medium-sized retailers between January and March 2019 were delayed, nearly 72% of them by a full day, according to a report from LateShipment.com. The numbers were worse for 3PLs: 7.6% of their UPS and FedEx parcel shipments arrived late.