Box_Junkie
Well-Known Member
I'm on board with this!! I have had this same discussion with management at my center. Funny thing is they agree with me and all they can do is say the Big Wigs are greedy, and want to impress the stockholders.
What is UPS really doing about FedEx Ground?
- Thread starter MrFedEx
- Start date
I'm on board with this!! I have had this same discussion with management at my center. Funny thing is they agree with me and all they can do is say the Big Wigs are greedy, and want to impress the stockholders.
How about we sacrifice our raise for a year? I certainly make more than I need and would be willing...
Brown287
Im not the Mail Man!
I think that at some point if we don't voluntarily do this we might have to involuntarily do this. I agree we are far more profitable then both FedEx and the USPS but if FedEx were to go at us with a price war like the USPS we might get caught with our pants down. However if there are anti-trust laws hanging over this matter then FedEx is in the same predicament as us.
dannyboy
From the promised LAND
there are a lot of ideas that are floating around. some good, some a killer if you want to stay in business.
take building ponds.
there are a lot of people now building ponds. landscapers, garden centers, the joe schmo that mows your yard, the bunch of guys that are out of work, looking for a score and something to do. all are after a certain pool of money. that pool of money has a cap, so while every one wants a slice, there is only so much to go around.
take the landscapers. they build ponds like they landscape, lots of rock, little imagination, no thought to what the owner will have to deal with down the road. garden centers are pretty much the same way. both have employees that are sitting idle, so they are interested in having money come in, regardless how much or little.
then you have those that will pretty much do anything for a buck. and if you let them talk very long, you will see they really dont have a clue. and some, never having built one, take customers around showing them stuff other people have built, claiming it was their job.
then you have someone like me. the pro that not only looks at the finished product while new, but looks down the road for what the customer actually wanted and needs. someone that guarantees their work from start to finish, with customer satisfaction in mind.
at first, i wanted all of the business. and i priced myself to where i could compete with the joe schmo's. problem is, they cut costs by cutting quality to keep their profit margins up, something i refused to do. so that cut into my profit margin way to far. on several large projects, i actually lost a ton of money.
so after looking at the whole scheme of things, i began to realize that i could be covered up with work, 7 days a week, 16 hour days, but would not be making money. but is that what i wanted? not hardly.
so i priced myself fairly. I am not interested in installing that preformed thing a customer picked up at Lowe's for 60 bucks. i am also not interested in bidding against someone else on a job that is BMW quality and size, but with Yugo pricing.
what the customer gets from me is fair pricing on a quality job with no excuses. if they want to look at the details of what they are getting for the extra money, i can show that i am hands down the better value, but i will sure not be the cheapest.
to translate that into the business at ups, we dont want everything that is out there at the price the customer is willing to pay. we want what we can make a profit at. a decent profit. for some businesses, we will trim that a bit, but for what they get, we provide great value.
when roadway first rolled out rps, there was great disdain among management, and a great underestimation of the possibility of success.
problem is, a lot of their management came from our ranks. so they had a ready trained workforce in many areas. the center manager here was an exups center manager for instance. and one of the ups employees they lured away, brought with him a copy of all the pick up records for our whole building, complete with how many packages each shipper shipped that week. it seems he just got it out of the trash one friday night.
only problem was that roadway never pushed it as far as they could have, and then let it slide, at which time fedex picked it up.
sorry for the length.
cutting a dollar off each package is foolish when we are only making 85 cents or less off each one. that is one sure way of going broke, unless the drivers want to take a 20% cut in pay to off set the losses?
i didnt think so.
d
take building ponds.
there are a lot of people now building ponds. landscapers, garden centers, the joe schmo that mows your yard, the bunch of guys that are out of work, looking for a score and something to do. all are after a certain pool of money. that pool of money has a cap, so while every one wants a slice, there is only so much to go around.
take the landscapers. they build ponds like they landscape, lots of rock, little imagination, no thought to what the owner will have to deal with down the road. garden centers are pretty much the same way. both have employees that are sitting idle, so they are interested in having money come in, regardless how much or little.
then you have those that will pretty much do anything for a buck. and if you let them talk very long, you will see they really dont have a clue. and some, never having built one, take customers around showing them stuff other people have built, claiming it was their job.
then you have someone like me. the pro that not only looks at the finished product while new, but looks down the road for what the customer actually wanted and needs. someone that guarantees their work from start to finish, with customer satisfaction in mind.
at first, i wanted all of the business. and i priced myself to where i could compete with the joe schmo's. problem is, they cut costs by cutting quality to keep their profit margins up, something i refused to do. so that cut into my profit margin way to far. on several large projects, i actually lost a ton of money.
so after looking at the whole scheme of things, i began to realize that i could be covered up with work, 7 days a week, 16 hour days, but would not be making money. but is that what i wanted? not hardly.
so i priced myself fairly. I am not interested in installing that preformed thing a customer picked up at Lowe's for 60 bucks. i am also not interested in bidding against someone else on a job that is BMW quality and size, but with Yugo pricing.
what the customer gets from me is fair pricing on a quality job with no excuses. if they want to look at the details of what they are getting for the extra money, i can show that i am hands down the better value, but i will sure not be the cheapest.
to translate that into the business at ups, we dont want everything that is out there at the price the customer is willing to pay. we want what we can make a profit at. a decent profit. for some businesses, we will trim that a bit, but for what they get, we provide great value.
when roadway first rolled out rps, there was great disdain among management, and a great underestimation of the possibility of success.
problem is, a lot of their management came from our ranks. so they had a ready trained workforce in many areas. the center manager here was an exups center manager for instance. and one of the ups employees they lured away, brought with him a copy of all the pick up records for our whole building, complete with how many packages each shipper shipped that week. it seems he just got it out of the trash one friday night.
only problem was that roadway never pushed it as far as they could have, and then let it slide, at which time fedex picked it up.
sorry for the length.
cutting a dollar off each package is foolish when we are only making 85 cents or less off each one. that is one sure way of going broke, unless the drivers want to take a 20% cut in pay to off set the losses?
i didnt think so.
d
What state are you from? That sounds really familiar.
ups1990
Well-Known Member
For many years this was the company's buss. mind set. Begininng this new year, UPS will go after these types of accounts as oppose to the large volume accounts which they claimed came at a negative or flat profit margin.
dannyboy
From the promised LAND
begining this year? dont think so. why do you think they push the ups store concept? now, they might think of new ways to go after more of this business, but going after resi pickups and deliveries is not just starting....only trying to figure out how to make the percentage needed to justify it.
d
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
I still can't believe that UPS has done so little to protest the clear advantages FedEx Ground has in the marketplace, which is why I posted this thread in the first place. Just how is it that one company gets to play by one set of rules, and the other gets a special set that allows them to "cheat"? It's like playing Monopoly, but UPS has to pay twice the rent when they land on someone else's property.
As others have pointed-out, UPS is obviously better at servicing the customer and is a far more professional organization. I would agree that more and more customers will eventually switch their business back to UPS as they discover FedEx Ground cannot deliver on it's promises. Low prices aren't everything.
My main point remains, and that is why does FedEx get special treatment in the ground arena, much as they do in the realm of air shipments with the RLA exemption? Both the contractor scam and the RLA exemption amount to favorable defacto subsidies for FedEx operations which put any competitors (not just UPS) at a distinct disadvantage. How is this fair? UPS does appear to be fighting the RLA deal, but the only way they seem to be battling Ground is by providing a better product.
As others have pointed-out, UPS is obviously better at servicing the customer and is a far more professional organization. I would agree that more and more customers will eventually switch their business back to UPS as they discover FedEx Ground cannot deliver on it's promises. Low prices aren't everything.
My main point remains, and that is why does FedEx get special treatment in the ground arena, much as they do in the realm of air shipments with the RLA exemption? Both the contractor scam and the RLA exemption amount to favorable defacto subsidies for FedEx operations which put any competitors (not just UPS) at a distinct disadvantage. How is this fair? UPS does appear to be fighting the RLA deal, but the only way they seem to be battling Ground is by providing a better product.
upssalesguy
UPS Defender
Big Babooba
Well-Known Member
Here's a story that parallels the FedEx Ground contractor classification fight.
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/strippers_lawsuit_against_mard.html
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/strippers_lawsuit_against_mard.html
