After a strike authorization vote, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said it reached agreement on a couple key points with UPS, including increasing the number of grievance arbitrators and the amount due in penalties for errors in pay, according to a report in Scripps News. Meanwhile, a separate 8-1 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the Teamsters was seen as weakening the right to strike.
Freight volumes are continuing to impact the economics of logistics, with two closely-watched indices showing contraction in the market as demand for goods remain challenged ahead of Q4 restocking. Average daily spot rates from China/East Asia to the West Coast were $1,324 per 40-foot container on June 7, down from $14,000 a year ago, while the Logistics Managers Index is in contraction territory.
The California assembly voted in favor of a bill to ban driverless autonomous trucks, which now goes on to the state senate and then to the governor. It seeks a pause that would require a human onboard for at least five years while safety data is compiled, according to The Los Angeles Times and other media.
Gently hopes to become a disrupter of urban fulfillment and major retailers with multi-billion-dollar networks, offering a same-day, nano fulfillment model using small nodes located around a city, tapping a predictive analytics engine to stock and position inventory in anticipation of demand.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy detailed how his team is working to implement an extreme makeover of the U.S. Post Service’s distribution and delivery network, in an effort to “unwind” past mistakes that created inefficiencies and hobbled its ability to execute on its mission.
Geodis, a provider of freight forwarding and logistics, has added drayage at southern and gulf ports with the acquisition of Southern Companies, following its 2022 purchase of Need It Now Delivers. Southern Companies provides drayage, container deconsolidation and consolidation, trucking and warehousing services at ports in Miami, Tampa, the Everglades, Houston, Charleston and Savannah.
All signs point to a muted retail peak outlook for 2023, with many shippers booking later sailings than in the past as they continue to burn through inventory, figure out demand signals and determine what new products to introduce for end-of-year holidays, Seko Logistics executives said on a media day call. The company’s CEO still sees “green shoots” of optimism with ordering picking up.
Wix, a platform for merchants to create ecommerce storefronts, has partnered with shipping services provider Shippo to add a set of natively integrated tools its customers can use to simplify order delivery and take advantage of volume discounts with carriers. Wix Shipping went live in November in Canada and has now launched in the U.S. and the UK, with plans to expand shortly to Germany.
It’s difficult to fully approximate the time a package will take to arrive when shipping is subject to a multitude of factors outside our control. These variables can include extreme weather, driver shortages, holidays and even customs discrepancies. What if you could know beforehand based on previous patterns, and implement this into the shipping estimate given to the customer? Read on to find out how.
The U.S. Postal Service reported a net loss that ballooned by $1.8 billion and a 5% decline in parcel volume for the second quarter, as the USPS faces the same ecommerce declines as other major carriers while wrestling with pain from a major network overhaul, union unrest and battles over its up-and-down EV adoption. Parcel revenue was down 2% to $7.6 billion, but first-class mail inched up to $6.3 billion.