Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visits a UPS facility in Landover, Maryland, and speaks with staff who are distributing COVID-19 vaccines in the Washington, D.C. region.
The pandemic slowed down many people’s lives due to social distancing and work-from-home orders. For postal and delivery companies though, COVID-19 caused a different trend.
With the growing demand for COVID-19 vaccines and the e-commerce sector soaring like never before, the delivery sector is among the busiest these days.
“We are working hard to satisfy the needs of the public,” said UPS spokesperson Dan McMackin. “We are delivering essential items; things people need to live their lives and run their businesses. We are delivering medicine and meal kits and so much more.”
COVID-19 has massively accelerated the growth of e-commerce. According to data from the U.S. Commerce Department, consumers spent $199.44 billion online with U.S. retailers during the third quarter of 2020. This equaled an uptick of 37.1% from $145.47 billion for the same quarter the prior year.
Nearly $1 in every $5 spent by consumers in Q3 came from online orders.
Small things can make a big impact, especially when a global pandemic turns things upside down by encouraging human distance instead of up-close kindness.
Teresa Angeli of Rochester was in her kitchen recently when a UPS delivery driver left a package on her doorstep. Angeli looked out the window in time to see driver Jason Gruhlke navigating a hopscotch course her kids had drawn on the driveway, much to the delight of Alice and Jack.
The moment was captured on her home’s security camera, and Angeli was so moved she posted it on her Facebook account.
“My first reaction was, wow, what a nice guy. He took the time to notice my kids and make them smile,” Angeli told KARE 11. “I’m sure he (Gruhlke) is a busy guy, and we personally use UPS A LOT because of the pandemic. And I knew the kids would be so excited. Sure enough, they came running into the house ‘Mom! Mom! The UPS guy did our hopscotch!'”
At UPS Inc., a project aimed at cutting one day from transit times for all its U.S. ground parcel deliveries has been dubbed “Our Fastest Ground Ever.” It is indeed an ambitious endeavor to merge UPS’ network infrastructure and technology to shrink the time between pickup and delivery of 15 million or so daily shipments.
The program, which kicked in solidly late last year, has made good progress. Today, 90% of UPS’ ground-parcel shipments move in one- to three-day transit times. More than half of the improvements under the initiative have come from shrinking two- to four-day transit times to one to three days. To speed deliveries, UPS has diverted millions of parcels from the railroads — it is a huge intermodal customer — to two-person, over-the-road sleeper teams.
But there’s a hole in Big Brown’s delivery net: Its weekend operations lag behind those of arch-rival FedEx Corp. which possesses an internally controlled seven-day-a-week delivery network. Until UPS can raise its weekend game to match its rival, it may not gain the traction it needs in the time-in-transit battle that will likely determine supremacy in e-commerce delivery.
The agency has managed UPS regional social media channels since 2019.
PS has selected Zeno Group as its Asia Pacific communications agency of record, following a competitive pitch. The remit covers 10 geographic markets in the region, including Mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia, led by Zeno’s regional hub team in Singapore.
“We are excited to work with Zeno to cement UPS’s status as a global logistics provider moving our world forward by delivering what matters,” said Kara Ross, President of International Communications, Digital & Executive Affairs, UPS.
“By tapping into Zeno’s data analytics-driven approach and team of experienced content strategists, together we will tell the unique stories of UPS’s people, customers, and partners.”