FedEx Ground plans to cut back Sunday delivery from 80% U.S. coverage to 50% starting in March, as it faces lower volume and the high cost of service on a light day. The company initially cut back Ground service on Sunday to 50% coverage from 95% in August, citing a focus on “improving efficiency and reducing costs,”
The three major parcel carriers had a decent peak holiday season in terms of on-time performance, with service levels comparable to 2019, according to ShipMatrix, not surprising as volumes were lighter even though holiday sales increased, as many shoppers returned to stores. FedEx saw a significant improvement over its 2021 showing.
UPS for the first time is extending its peak surcharges for residential delivery beyond the usual mid-January cutoff, referring to them as by the new designation of “demand surcharges” which will be in place until further notice, while FedEx is not following suit but letting them lapse.
FedEx experienced another challenging quarter, with lower volumes impacting the top and bottom line, especially in the Express segment, and the company announced further moves to rein in costs and trim operations, including grounding more flights and dialing back capital spending.
The U.S. Postal Service today announced a major upgrade to its planned rollout of electric vehicles to replace its aging delivery fleet, saying the USPS will purchase only EVs after 2026, as the agency bows to significant pressure from Washington and the states to expand and speed up its changeover.
Pitney Bowes will get a board makeover with an installed majority and a new interim CEO, if investor Hestia Capital has its way, actions that have led management to take defensive measures. The hedge fund said it’s taking these hardball measures after the company refused its offer last month to bring in three new outside directors.
A freight consortium made up of J.B. Hunt, Uber Freight and Convoy is looking to create an industry standard for using application programming interface (API) connections to share data among partners in order to solve freight scheduling challenges, initially addressing full truckload (TL).
Ahead of peak season, Macy’s converted 35 stores into mini fulfillment centers, creating about 1 million square feet of space to handle online orders, lowering costs, speeding up delivery times and reducing the incidence of painful split shipments, executives said on a recent earnings call.
While marketplaces have made it easier than ever to launch a digital-first brand, the process of getting products to a customer’s door has never been more complex, and marketplace aggregators will face challenges and frustrations handling the supply chain complications.
OneRail, an Orlando-based startup with software that optimizes last-mile deliveries, has raised $33 million in a Series B round to further develop its platform and bring in new talent to fuel its growth, with plans to launch an extension for SMBs on Shopify in 2023.