How can FedEx make money on this?

[SmithBarney]

Still trying to figure out how to keep ground from touching my Express packages... 5-6 times a week a customer says
ohh I gave the package to "bill" the ground driver... where it goes who knows.. one ground guy tried to do me "a favor"
by giving me an express he picked up.. the package looked like it was run over by a truck, I told him to take it back,
the box was falling apart we would never accept a package in such poor condition.

 

[MrFedEx]

Do you realize how far this conversation has gone in the last couple years? From "Fred would never do anything to damage the reputation of Express," to "Ground will never be able to handle the volume," to "Ground will never be able to make commit times," to "Ground's going to have to figure out business and residential addresses." Don't look now, but people around here are becoming believers.

I DO believe....that Fred is an opportunistic, sadistic weasel with delusions of becoming a demi-God among the GOP faithful. I also believe that he has already sold us at Express down the river once again with E2 and XS. I KNOW that Ground will have some real issues accomplishing Express-level service but that they will eventually figure it out. In classic Express style, they will turn the screws on the ISPs' just like they do with us.

 

[SmithBarney]

There could be a silver lining...numbers are off.. say at one time there were 10,000 contractors...but since the ISP model was put in place lets say there are now 2,000 ISP's(assuming 5 rtes per) I'd say it'll be easier for Fred to terminate 2,000 contracts than 10,000, hire the drivers as employees... surely those with more ISP knowledge can chime in...

 

[MrFedEx]

There could be a silver lining...numbers are off.. say at one time there were 10,000 contractors...but since the ISP model was put in place lets say there are now 2,000 ISP's(assuming 5 rtes per) I'd say it'll be easier for Fred to terminate 2,000 contracts than 10,000, hire the drivers as employees... surely those with more ISP knowledge can chime in...

I think the ISP's are Fred's future. He has no intention of killing the Golden Goose unless he has to to save his own skin. As long as the ISP stays legal. they are not expendable like we are.

 

[beentheredonethat]

I recently purchased a refurbished 16gb iPad 2 from Amazon for $349 which included free shipping. I have been tracking it and as of this morning here is the progress:

http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?actio...y_code=us&initial=x&tracknumbers=497394766822

My question is simple---how can FedEx make any money on this shipment? I know that "free shipping" is not really free but how can Apple or FedEx offer free international shipping and still make money? I guess the real question is just how much are the iPad's and other similar products marked up. Apple lowered the prices on their current iPads by $100 when they introduced their newest iPad and the one I got was refurbished, which means I saved an additional $50, yet I know they are still making money.

Upstate as a previous poster indicated, companies this large get huge discounts, they usually get better discounts by not having a priority on these pkgs and it goes out on space available flights. The price they paid is probably 10-20 bucks for shipping. (Probably closer to 10). Keep in mind the savings. They have one shipment cost, no warehousing in the US, no pick\pack in the US, no small pkg cost in the US. As soon as it is produced\refurbed, it's out the door to the customer. On top of that, I'm willing to bet you paid for it, and then got it delivered to you a week later. For new ipads were the components are purchased, they have your money immediately, ship out the product and you have it a week later. But the vendors who make the parts don't get paid for usually 30 days sometimes 60. So they also make money on the time they have your money, til the time they take that money and pay the vendors for the parts. There's a reason apple has 100 billion in their bank acct and is doing a 10 billion buyback and offering dividends that amount to 10 billion a year.

 

[whenIgetthere]

But the vendors who make the parts don't get paid for usually 30 days sometimes 60 .

I find this funny, because Fedex puts customers on cash only if their account is 30 days overdue (could even be 15 days), but Fedex pays NOTHING from accounts payable till the 60th day!!!

 

[Cactus]

There used to be a book with a list of all delinquent accounts in our region that was accessable to all at our station. Some customers had been in arrears for more than 2 or 3 years but I don't think the company made any aggressive attempts to collect. And they still had on-call pickup privileges. Crazy.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

There used to be a book with a list of all delinquent accounts in our region that was accessable to all at our station. Some customers had been in arrears for more than 2 or 3 years but I don't think the company made any aggressive attempts to collect. And they still had on-call pickup privileges. Crazy.

We (drivers) receive either an ODS (DIAD message) or a note in our slot notifying us if a customer's credit has been suspended, which usually happens if they are 30 days or more overdue.

 

[Cactus]

We (drivers) receive either an ODS (DIAD message) or a note in our slot notifying us if a customer's credit has been suspended, which usually happens if they are 30 days or more overdue.

Well we get that too but some customers try to get sneaky by using the dropboxes instead of calling in pickups.

 

[Mr. 7]

Billing is none of my concern.
If you hand me a pkg., I'm taking it.

 

[DOWNTRODDEN IN TEXAS]

Last Friday, before the massive screw job of an Apple launch, I got to one of my normal stops had a huge pile of Ground packages that had been there for over a month and they begged me to take them. I sometimes hate telling people that I can't help them, this was one of those times.

Did anyone else get told that there would be late freight, and it was all Apple and a large amount and as time went on it became a tiny fraction of what it was supposed to be there, and none of it was Apple? That was great, actually used a 43 for 3 hours, then they gave up and sent us all home.