Man, Kinko's was such a great acquisition

Oldfart

Well-Known Member
Who are their competitors in the States? Local mom and pop shops?
UPS Stores. Lots of local franchises and Mom and Pop places in my area do similar tasks. Not many do everything the Office locations can do and several Office locations around here are 24 hr. I figured if Ken May couldn't turn Office around, nobody can.
 

Oldfart

Well-Known Member
Staples.

FedEx drop boxes are located in every Staples and they are a UPS ship centre.
Staples around here closed a year or so ago. Office Depot or Max is the only place like that left around here. Internet shopping keeps squeezing the brick and mortar retailers.
 

BootsOnTarmac

Well-Known Member
With Walgreens everywhere including shipping supplies, Cheetos, milk, diapers, prescriptions, cosmetics, etc., they are a great place to drop off your packages. With the pharmacy you know FedEx will be there 6 days a week. Win, Win.
 

Oldfart

Well-Known Member
Walgreens has its limits as does Kroger. NO airbill shipments, no Intl. I believe, no Haz and employees that know very little.
 

BootsOnTarmac

Well-Known Member
Yes, declared Haz would still have to go to the nearest station or hub / airport. Intl,. would still be pick upped by the Express courier. FedEx expects shipments out of a retail store to be a simple shipping label generated and put on the customers box for whatever service the customer requests. Obviously some shipments like, Haz, heavyweight, some Intl. customs shipments, etc., will be rejected. Employees at these retail establishments only need to know how to operate the FedEx provided scanner, which is not much different than the ones they use for inventory control. The fedex driver picking up the item will be the stopgap for improper shipment.
 

Star B

White Lightening
Walgreens has its limits as does Kroger. NO airbill shipments, no Intl. I believe, no Haz and employees that know very little.
Are you sure about the airbill shipments? I'd be surprised if they would refuse peepaks going to lenexa on the manual awbs.
 

Oldfart

Well-Known Member
Are you sure about the airbill shipments? I'd be surprised if they would refuse peepaks going to lenexa on the manual awbs.
That's what we were told and I believe I saw it on frontline. I believe Walgreens and Kroger only have the ability to do a possession type scan scan and nothing more. Might be wrong though.
 

dezguy

Well-Known Member
We don't have Walgreens or Kroeger, here. Your best bet to get the stuff that Kinko's did is either Staples or the UPS store. My guess is a lot of FedEx's customers will now head on over to the competition. There is still a large segment of the population who want their hand held and won't just throw their shipment into a drop box.
 

Star B

White Lightening
That's what we were told and I believe I saw it on frontline. I believe Walgreens and Kroger only have the ability to do a possession type scan scan and nothing more. Might be wrong though.
I sure hope so. I mean, the manual awbs do have barcodes so it's not like they wouldn't have the tracking number to associate with it. It may take 'training' of Walgreens to accept them but it would be worth it to cut down on BS runner on-calls in some areas.

There is still a large segment of the population who want their hand held and won't just throw their shipment into a drop box.
Hand held or just do not have a clue on how to deal with the myriad of options. DSR? ASR? ISR? Whaaaaaaut? Just let me send the package!
 

McFeely

Huge Member
Are you sure about the airbill shipments? I'd be surprised if they would refuse peepaks going to lenexa on the manual awbs.

I've picked up a pee-pak from my Walgreens on my route. The store was confused by it, as their scanner wouldn't let them take possession of it or whatever type of scan they put on incoming packages. Also had a pre-paid dentist box that confused them because of the same thing.

As far as some limitations to these SNG locations, they cannot do CODs for a customer pickup. They can do ASR, DSR, ISR...doubtful they can sign for something DG but not sure. The bummer about these stores is there is very little training from FedEx and the staff doesn't seem to give a dick and balls about our stuff. It's just more work for them.
 

Oldfart

Well-Known Member
I've picked up a pee-pak from my Walgreens on my route. The store was confused by it, as their scanner wouldn't let them take possession of it or whatever type of scan they put on incoming packages. Also had a pre-paid dentist box that confused them because of the same thing.

As far as some limitations to these SNG locations, they cannot do CODs for a customer pickup. They can do ASR, DSR, ISR...doubtful they can sign for something DG but not sure. The bummer about these stores is there is very little training from FedEx and the staff doesn't seem to give a dick and balls about our stuff. It's just more work for them.
For sure no DG. Fedex Office can't even accept DG. Run into that on my rt. Shipper keeps sending DG to hold at Office and the recpt has to pu at the station.
 

Star B

White Lightening
Gah. Really. We have a tracking number. That's all those stupid scanners should look for when trying to do a possession scan on it.

I wonder if it has something to do with DG.. in other words, reject ANYTHING that doesn't have the form id on it. That would make sense why the awbs would reject. Was your dentist box a powership label or just a billable stamp?
 
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