There's been talks inthe past about Basic. Here's what it is.
Basic is a no frills ground service that has 3 components of it.
The customer signs up for this contract service and UPS only offers it to our larger customers. Normally the default max weight for Basic is 5 lbs, but we have some customers that go til 10 lbs for a Basic pkg. This weight limit is more a UPS guideline, due to the USPS cost increase significantly past 5 lbs. For the pkgs that fall under the weight guidelines and are to the continental US there are 3 options.
1. USPS PO Boxes, regardless of destination zip, any pkgs addressed to the USPS gets delv to the USPS for delivery.
2. Urban zips - roughly 1/2 the US zips are listed as urban and we deliver the basic pkg to the end customer. looks pretty much like a ground pkg and treated as one, only issue is only 1 delv attempt, no insurance, shipper release.
3. Rural Zips - roughly 1/2 the US zips are rural and get delivered to the USPS and then they delv the final leg to the end consignee. Note even though it's 1/2 the zips, it's roughly 1/4 of the population\pkgs.
There are some that say Basic is outsourcing and should be eliminated. However, with that kind of thinking, even if they get what they want, we'll lose even more customers, and not gain new ones with that kind of thinking. There are some customers that dont' want all the frills of UPS service and don't need the ground transit time speed. (Basic has a delay of 1 -2 days vs UPS ground). Those customers have other choices including FDX Smartpost. If we don't offer the service, then those customers will use a carrier that will. Then we won't pickup, transport, sort, load and deliver the pkg to the consignee and for 25% of the pkgs delv to the USPS.
I think the majority of us on the boards think that more volume is a good thing for all of us UPSers.
