FeDEX Letters

[bbsam]

In other words, he no longer has the option to operate as a sole contractor operating one vehicle. FedEx just threw him under the bus, and bbsam will swoop-in and reap the benefits. Smart business move, but what about the other guy? When he signed-on, it was with the expectation that he could be a single unit contractor. Now he's being forced-out because the original Ground model is illegal. That isn't his fault.

A few years back you couldn't pick-up a newspaper or look through Craigslist without seeing several Ground "business opportunities" for sale at bargain basement prices. Truck, route and the whole deal for pennies on the dollar. Why sell something so "profitable" at an obvious loss?

In my area, Ground drivers leave the building at about the same time as UPS does, so perhaps the jump-start is only applicable in certain areas of the country. What I do know is that Ground still cannot offer UPS levels of service...at least around here. Even though they are getting better there are still lots of complaints and mis-delivered pkgs out there. bbsam probably runs an excellent operation, but I just don't see "excellence" for Ground as a whole for now. I still have customers who give me Ground stuff that was mis-delivered to the wrong city. Where I work, there are several cities along a major urban arterial, and it's possible to have street addresses that are the same for each one of them. However, one would think that seeing the city was different would kind of make a difference. Not to the Ground guy.

No, it isn't his fault. But just remember who pushed the issue with lawsuits brought about at the behest of Lynn Faris, the IBT and Fedex Watch. I've posted it before. They had no interest in the actual contractor, only in screwing Fedex. Perhaps unintended consequences, but they had to have known this possibility existed in which case they simply didn't care. They still got paid.

 

[MrFedEx]

No, it isn't his fault. But just remember who pushed the issue with lawsuits brought about at the behest of Lynn Faris, the IBT and Fedex Watch. I've posted it before. They had no interest in the actual contractor, only in screwing Fedex. Perhaps unintended consequences, but they had to have known this possibility existed in which case they simply didn't care. They still got paid.

I don't know about Lynn Faris and the IBT, but if the model was legal, then their case should have been tossed out of court. It wasn't, was it? That means that FedEx was perpetuating an illegal business model. I'm sure that FedEx Legal scrutinized RPS for a very long time before pulling the trigger on the purchase, so it's on them for continuing to do business in that manner.

The whole point of FedEx Ground is for FedEx to jettison every possible cost that it can. They are willing to pay ISP's like you a percentage of the take in order to keep a cost advantage that probably is still skirting the edges of the law. Good for you, and bad for competitors who don't get a special deal.