Surepost causing routes to be cut

[hembone]

17 dollars for a 2 lb. package. The shipper must be ripping people off on shipping and handling. See post #58.

 

[worldwide]

So what does UPS get to take the package from the shipper to the Post Office?
Add that sum plus $1.85 per package for each package that we already have a delivery for, and there's many in densely populated urban settings, and you an opportunity lost.
Now add in the ones going to the house next door or across the street to another delivery...?
We've seen this company's obsession with GPS technology when it comes to discipline, let's put it to work here.
I've never railed against this program in rural settings, but in tight, densely populated urban settings, the program raises red flags of other agendas by the company, hence the title of this thread.
Sometimes you have to read between the lines on these quarterly reports and earnings statements, in conjunction with front line experiences, to get "the big picture".

You can choose to drink the brown koolaid, but it does not change the facts.

"So what does UPS get to take the package from the shipper to the Post Office?"

Not much.

Are there opportunities to use all techhology to maximize deliveries in densely populated urban areas? Sure, always way to tweak and improve. Fedex Home Delivery and SurPost are meant to meet the needs of residential shippers and the majority of residential deliveries are to surburban, rural and super rural areas. More of those verus densely populated areas so it makes sense to concentrate on the majority of the opportunity.

"Sometimes you have to read between the lines on these quarterly reports and earnings statements, in conjunction with front line experiences, to get "the big picture"."

Can you elaborate on what your are inferring? Is Fedex Ground growing at a faster pace than UPS ground and at higher profit margins? How long has that trend been happening? Where have the majority of the packages in the FHD and SmartPost systems come from?

You can choose to drink the union koolaid, but it does not change the facts.

 

[Catatonic]

Sorry, I was on vacation and missed your question. NO, we ONLY scan the pkgs in the bag if the label on the bag is missing or defaced (ripped) and not able to be manually entered. If you don't scan them all (in that case) those pkgs come up on a "no scan" (missed/incomplete) report. We know what happens then-don't we? One of our loaders ordered vaccine for their horse from a shipper in the same state we work in and it took 4 days for the pkg to get delivered to the consignee. The shipping charge (ground service) was $17 for a 2 lb package! When it didn't arrive on time they ordered a new shipment from another company who shipped it FED X ground and it arrived the next day (like a "regular" UPS shipment would have) and it cost $8. The loader refused the first pkg sent through "un-SUREPOST" and called the shipper to let them known they would never order through their co again as long as they used "Surepost". Don't tell me UPS isn't making decent $ through the P.O. program. The rates are high and the service sucks.

It's amazing how much information one can get from ad hoc observations, lack of insight and runaway imagination.

 

[Bubblehead]

"So what does UPS get to take the package from the shipper to the Post Office?"

Not much.

Are there opportunities to use all techhology to maximize deliveries in densely populated urban areas? Sure, always way to tweak and improve. Fedex Home Delivery and SurPost are meant to meet the needs of residential shippers and the majority of residential deliveries are to surburban, rural and super rural areas. More of those verus densely populated areas so it makes sense to concentrate on the majority of the opportunity.

"Sometimes you have to read between the lines on these quarterly reports and earnings statements, in conjunction with front line experiences, to get "the big picture"."

Can you elaborate on what your are inferring? Is Fedex Ground growing at a faster pace than UPS ground and at higher profit margins? How long has that trend been happening? Where have the majority of the packages in the FHD and SmartPost systems come from?

You can choose to drink the union koolaid, but it does not change the facts.

Yes I can elaborate.
I believe that this system is unsustainable.
As the USPS continues to operate at annual losses in the billions, how long will it be before they, or the American public, realize they are being exploited?
When will the USPS tell UPS and FedEx, we can't do it at this price anymore?
When this happens who will be in the best position to pick up the pieces?
I insist we will, but only if we embrace these packages in the densely populated urban areas.
In doing so we build our infrastructure, positioning ourselves in the ever expanding internet/television driven home delivery market.
The house that gets 2 or 3 packages a week will likely get 3 or 4 a day in the not to distant future.
We have always valued customers that receive multiple packages per delivery for the reason that the 2nd, 3rd, and subsequent packages become much more profitable.
How would this differ in the urban settings I have outlined?
I say let's help FedEx and the USPS build this market, while positioning ourselves in urban settings, for when the house of cards come tumbling down.
UPS has allowed itself to be pulled into the trap that so many other stock market driven companies have.
It is no longer good enough to be good and maintain, we now have to improve quarterly, or the stock suffers.
It's this instant gratification mentality that blinds us from long term vision.
Let's stop courting the day traders and embrace the investors like Warren Buffet that are content to have a stable company, that returns a solid dividend, with vision for the long term.

Union koolaid?
I challenge you to find me quoting one union doctrine or even the word Teamster in any of my posts on this subject.
You used terms such as quarterly reports and earnings statements, hence the brown koolaid crack.
All of my thoughts and opinions on this subject are based on real life observations experiences, are yours?

 

[moreluck]

Bubble............OMG ! The avatar.........

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Bubble............OMG ! The avatar.........

That is all that you were able to take from what was a well written, well thought post? It was clear, concise and spot on. It's no wonder very few take you seriously here.

Bubbles--excellent post. Dave

(Why does my head hurt?)

 

[moreluck]

That is all that you were able to take from what was a well written, well thought post? It was clear, concise and spot on. It's no wonder very few take you seriously here.

Bubbles--excellent post. Dave

(Why does my head hurt?)

I didn't read the post......I don't know anything about surepost and had no opinion to add. I do however read most posts and my eye went straight to the drummer boy!!

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I didn't read the post......I don't know anything about surepost and had no opinion to add. I do however read most posts and my eye went straight to the drummer boy!!

You know what they say about simple minds...

 

[menotyou]

You know what they say about simple minds...

Simple minds share great thoughts? I love Bubbles new avatar, too!!!

 

[air_dr]

As for a "low cost option" hows this; a customer is given low cost "ground saver" option, and has the option of receiving the parcel at will call on it's arrival day. This keeps the pkg at ups and potentially creates a full time 22.3 job that was previously shed to the PO. Customer saves $, ups saves $, a ups job is created. WIN WIN WIN!

How about instead of limiting ourselves to will call at the hub, which may be some distance away, the "ground saver" option would deliver the package to the nearest UPS store location, which, for many people just a few minutes away...

I insist we will, but only if we embrace these packages in the densely populated urban areas.
In doing so we build our infrastructure, positioning ourselves in the ever expanding internet/television driven home delivery market.
The house that gets 2 or 3 packages a week will likely get 3 or 4 a day in the not to distant future.
We have always valued customers that receive multiple packages per delivery for the reason that the 2nd, 3rd, and subsequent packages become much more profitable.
Let's stop courting the day traders and embrace the investors like Warren Buffet that are content to have a stable company, that returns a solid dividend, with vision for the long term.

This is besides the good points you are making, but, just to correct the facts, Berkshire Hathaway, Buffet's company, does not pay dividends to shareholders. "Profits" may be a better word choice.

Anyway, I am curious, anyone have any statistics on the growth of internet commerce, both past as well as what is expected. Should we really be expecting customers who get 2 or 3 packages a week to be receiving 3 or 4 a day in the not to distant future? I simply don't know and so I am asking...

I respect Bubbles mindset of future growth rather than managed decline. Radical idea: Would it even be remotely possible for UPS to undertake delivery of mail, especially in more densely populated areas. That would certainly bring volume to us rather than give ours away.

Finally, I have heard nothing about surepost at work, though as an afternoon air driver, I am SO out of the loop on things. It is on BC that I first heard about telematics, long before I heard anything mentioned at work, any only llike 4 months ago, telematics went live for us. Anyway, I am in the Midwest, and the hub serves a territory that has no rural parts. No one seems to be saying anything about Surepost. Is this something that is being introduced gradually, one area at a time?

 

[worldwide]

Yes I can elaborate.
I believe that this system is unsustainable.
As the USPS continues to operate at annual losses in the billions, how long will it be before they, or the American public, realize they are being exploited?
When will the USPS tell UPS and FedEx, we can't do it at this price anymore?
When this happens who will be in the best position to pick up the pieces?
I insist we will, but only if we embrace these packages in the densely populated urban areas.
In doing so we build our infrastructure, positioning ourselves in the ever expanding internet/television driven home delivery market.
The house that gets 2 or 3 packages a week will likely get 3 or 4 a day in the not to distant future.
We have always valued customers that receive multiple packages per delivery for the reason that the 2nd, 3rd, and subsequent packages become much more profitable.
How would this differ in the urban settings I have outlined?
I say let's help FedEx and the USPS build this market, while positioning ourselves in urban settings, for when the house of cards come tumbling down.
UPS has allowed itself to be pulled into the trap that so many other stock market driven companies have.
It is no longer good enough to be good and maintain, we now have to improve quarterly, or the stock suffers.
It's this instant gratification mentality that blinds us from long term vision.
Let's stop courting the day traders and embrace the investors like Warren Buffet that are content to have a stable company, that returns a solid dividend, with vision for the long term.

Union koolaid?
I challenge you to find me quoting one union doctrine or even the word Teamster in any of my posts on this subject.
You used terms such as quarterly reports and earnings statements, hence the brown koolaid crack.
All of my thoughts and opinions on this subject are based on real life observations experiences, are yours?

The USPS will continue to exist--maybe with less services but it is not going anywhere. If the USPS tells UPS & Fedex they can not provide the service at the current price and the rates rise, the consumer will pay the price. If that happens, rates will rise to a position that make UPS Ground residential and Fedex Home Delivery more competitive. Until that time (assuming it ever happens), UPS must provide SurePost to compete with FHD. Could urban settings be changed? Perhaps but I would argue that more of the population lives in surburban, rural and superrural areas and the SurePost model is not designed to be geo and zip code specific for routing purposes-perhaps in the future that will change.

UPS can not stand by and let Fedex continue to take marketshare. If they can provide a comparable service as SmartPost while maintaining a profit, they are obligated to their shareholders to do so. If the profit margin of SurePost is higher than the profit margin of Ground residential, UPS should aggressively court competitor volume to go via SurePost. Fedex is certainly concentrating on SmartPost due to superior profit margins of that service. If UPS did not offer SurePost, more union jobs would go to the independent contractors at Fedex. 100% of SurePost packages are picked up, sorted and delivered by a union employee.

It all comes down to what the consumer will pay. At current rates, UPS and Fedex Home Delivery have priced themselves out of the 1-3 lb ground residential market and the USPS is the most price competitive. If the USPS ever becomes a true private business that competes on equal footing with UPS and Fedex, the story will be differnet. That will not happen, if ever, for a very long time and will literally take an act of Congress. You think the deficit legislation was tough to get through?

Union koolaid was in reference to the brown koolaid indicating blindly following UPS policies. As a shareholder of UPS stock, I beleive that UPS must offer this service to compete and grow. To do so otherwise would be a disservice to shareholders. As a public company, UPS' first responsibility is to its shareholders. That may be another debate to be had (public vs private) but as a public company, they answer to the shareholders first. Has nothing to do with UPS policies--has everything to do with UPS shareholder responsibilities. This is real life.

 

[Bubblehead]

The USPS will continue to exist--maybe with less services but it is not going anywhere. If the USPS tells UPS & Fedex they can not provide the service at the current price and the rates rise, the consumer will pay the price. If that happens, rates will rise to a position that make UPS Ground residential and Fedex Home Delivery more competitive. Until that time (assuming it ever happens), UPS must provide SurePost to compete with FHD. Could urban settings be changed? Perhaps but I would argue that more of the population lives in surburban, rural and superrural areas and the SurePost model is not designed to be geo and zip code specific for routing purposes-perhaps in the future that will change.

UPS can not stand by and let Fedex continue to take marketshare. If they can provide a comparable service as SmartPost while maintaining a profit, they are obligated to their shareholders to do so. If the profit margin of SurePost is higher than the profit margin of Ground residential, UPS should aggressively court competitor volume to go via SurePost. Fedex is certainly concentrating on SmartPost due to superior profit margins of that service. If UPS did not offer SurePost, more union jobs would go to the independent contractors at Fedex. 100% of SurePost packages are picked up, sorted and delivered by a union employee.

It all comes down to what the consumer will pay. At current rates, UPS and Fedex Home Delivery have priced themselves out of the 1-3 lb ground residential market and the USPS is the most price competitive. If the USPS ever becomes a true private business that competes on equal footing with UPS and Fedex, the story will be differnet. That will not happen, if ever, for a very long time and will literally take an act of Congress. You think the deficit legislation was tough to get through?

Union koolaid was in reference to the brown koolaid indicating blindly following UPS policies. As a shareholder of UPS stock, I beleive that UPS must offer this service to compete and grow. To do so otherwise would be a disservice to shareholders. As a public company, UPS' first responsibility is to its shareholders. That may be another debate to be had (public vs private) but as a public company, they answer to the shareholders first. Has nothing to do with UPS policies--has everything to do with UPS shareholder responsibilities. This is real life.

I feel like we're going in circles, and maybe we are.
I've never advocated complete abandonment of this service/program.
I simply think there is room within this system to cherry pick certain areas, both urban and suburban, to continue door to door service.
I'm sure we have the technology to do it.
I, unlike you, (maybe just optimistically) think that the political climate is changing to not allow the irresponsible management of our government and agencies.
Big businesses like UPS and FedEx, void of conscience, is more than willing to exploit a gov't subsidized agency like the USPS.
My hope as an overtaxed citizen, is that the populous wakes up and puts a stop to it.

 

[QKRSTKR]

OK, so in your example, let's say you have 1 pkg for 123 anystreet and 3 more for that same address going to the P.O. You intend to deliver all 4 to 123 anystreet. You scan the package addressed to 123 anystreet and then scan the first SurePost package. You will then have to hit "yes" for that package to confirm that you are at the "right" address, even though you aren't. You will also have to deal with the SurePost message that will appear on your DIAD. I understand and applaud your customer service but think this is a battle not worth fighting; besides, don't they bag the SurePost packages in your center?

I think it was Bubbles who suggested a determination be made during the preload as to whether a SurePost package is PAL'd to the P.O. or to the consignee based upon whether there was a package going to their house or not.

I said loose packages. For some reason they don't bag all of them and some of them are big or long. Just doesn't make sense. I've never seen a surepost package pal'd to a house.

 

[QKRSTKR]

I would not recomend this. Work as instructed or face termination for failure to follow instructions. The packages are contracted at a lower rate to be delivered to the post offices and UPS could not get paid if that contract is not fulfilled. As you all should know by now, if you cost them money, you will end up paying for it one way or another!!

Thanks. I said maybe. It's their game and their rules. I'm just a player in the game. I do as I'm told, and as upstate said, I never put a lie into that diad. When It ask me a question, I put the right answer. I do appreciate the concern though, others aren't very bright.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I said loose packages. For some reason they don't bag all of them and some of them are big or long. Just doesn't make sense. I've never seen a surepost package pal'd to a house.

..and you won't unless there is a change in the way that the preload processes those packages. It has been suggested that if a consignee has two or more packages out for delivery and one of them is a SurePost that the computer should PAL both to be delivered to the consignee.

 

[chuchu]

It's amazing how much information one can get from ad hoc observations, lack of insight and runaway imagination.

"Lack of insight" and "runaway imagination"? The surepost shipping bill was on the visa statement. Maybe we can be alittle more specific in negative "ad hoc" shotgun responses - not that it changes any of the details. I am a driver that delivers 50 to 100 pkgs daily to the Post Office. There wasn't anything written in that post that wasn't true and what we drivers know is that many of the companies shipping through "Surepost" used to ship alot more thru UPS than they do today, thus the animosity toward the "Surepost" program. I wish I had noted how many "would be" consignees stopped me during the course of my day and said they tracked their UPS shipment and it said it was out for delivery and should be on my truck. It was. Too bad they had to wait another day (or more) for the postal employee to leave it in front of their door so they could step out and twist their ankle on it.

 

[menotyou]

My mail-lady's car is so full now, she will have to start making 2 trips. I live at the end of her loop and her car is still packed most days. I don't see how this will be able to continue and grow.

 

[browned out]

The Post Office is going to be pressured into not losing billions of dollars a year. Many of their services lose money and surepost probably is one of them. They will have to raise the rates.

These are our packages and we should be able to land these accounts but with surepost; ups has no incentive to. With the increased residential density and multiple packages to the same address; UPS can afford to cut rates and be much more competitive with the PO.

 

[Catatonic]

The Post Office is going to be pressured into not losing billions of dollars a year. Many of their services lose money and surepost probably is one of them. They will have to raise the rates.

These are our packages and we should be able to land these accounts but with surepost, ups has no incentive to. With the increased residential density and multiple packages to the same address; UPS can afford to cut rates and be much more competitive with the PO.

The Post Office is going to be pressured into not losing billions of dollars a year.
I think there is a strong possibility that the USPS will declare bankruptcy and force the US Government to eliminate the over-funding of the USPS pension fund and to use previous payments to these assumed pension liabilities to eliminate the debt owed to the US Government (in other words, the US taxpayer). The USPS would be a profitable company if the US Government would quit intervening in their business and legally obligating the USPS to providing pension funding that no other private or government entity has to legally abide by.


Many of their services lose money and surepost probably is one of them. They will have to raise the rates.

These are our packages and we should be able to land these accounts but with surepost, ups has no incentive to. With the increased residential density and multiple packages to the same address; UPS can afford to cut rates and be much more competitive with the PO.

Your assumption that the USPS is losing money on SurePost and SmartPost packages is an assumption (which you indicated by saying "probably"). I don't think that is the case personally but I don't have visibility into the USPS numbers on this. If the USPS raises the rates for both UPS and FedEx that would help narrow the gap between SurePost and UPS Ground.

However, I'm not sure how converting SurePost to UPS Ground will increase the packages per stop significantly. Development and implementation of technologies at the shipper and at UPS to fine-tune the stop density is something that I hope UPS is working on. Rural and Super-Rural locations should always go to SurePost while UPS should be able to "redirect" SurePost packages on he preload to the UPS driver if it makes sense. One caveat on this, I don't know if this is allowed in the contract between UPS and the USPS. The USPS may get the revenue for a SurePost package even if UPS delivers it to the end customer.

UPS already has all the motivation needed right now to get these large shippers to choose Ground over SurePost.
UPS is mostly motivated by one thing and that is profits.
The profit on a UPS Ground package is considerably more than SurePost.

I don't see UPS cutting rates ... they will let the competition have the packages before they accept low margin packages unless there are tag-along packages with higher margins. This has been published and bantered about too much in the last two years that I really do think this is truly a UPS tactical approach to increasing their profitability.

I know what I am about to post is hard for some people to accept but ... increasing or maintaining employees is not a goal of UPS or any publicly traded corporation.
Increasing profitability is the goal of all publicly traded corporations.
I have learned to accept this business reality although I don't particularly like it or think it is the best approach for society.

 

[menotyou]

On some TV show the other day, a newsy was saying that the reason no one is hiring is because the corp's are squeezing every ounce of productivity from their current employees. JMHO, but until the reaches the breaking point, it is going to continue. They just posted two bids at my center. We are getting back to where we were before the last round of retiree's. Yeah!!!