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FedEx and UPS say packages during a record-setting holiday season are shipping without a hitch.
FedEx has said the last four Mondays before Christmas would likely be among the busiest days in the company’s history, thanks to the continued growth in online shopping.
UPS said Wednesday the holiday season is going according to plan. The company will deliver an estimated 30 million packages per day during the week of Dec. 19, nearly double its normal daily volume.
UPS (NYSE:UPS) has formed a strategic alliance with Optoro, providing a one-stop shop solution for retailers and manufacturers to optimize the transportation and disposition of returns and excess inventory. The companies’ joint reverse logistics solutions combine UPS’s operational and logistics expertise with Optoro’s software platform that maximizes recovery value and reduces environmental waste.
A new UPS delivery trike in Portland, Oregon, pedaled by a driver with help from an electric motor, can only hold a tenth of the packages as a standard-size truck. But because the tiny trike doesn’t get stuck in traffic, it (alongside a standard fleet of trucks) can help the company become more efficient in a crowded urban neighborhood.
“With a full-size delivery vehicle, you can’t get it into places that you would with an e-bike,” says Scott Phillippi, an automotive engineer at UPS. “It’s part of an overall strategy to make an impact on the environment as well as become more efficient in doing so.”
Dear Mother Nature,
Some of us just got around to ordering our presents. You mind maybe holding off on the white stuff for a couple of days until they get where they are going?
Maybe we’re fretting needlessly about the holiday gifts. The folks who deliver the goodies say they have it under control.
United Parcel Service has a team of five meteorologists keeping up with the latest weather. If there is a storm that might affect deliveries, the weather people talk with UPS’s contingency team and reroute packages.
If rumors are to be believed Amazon.com Inc. is likely to bring about a significant change in the logistics industry as the e-commerce giant is secretly working on an Uber like app to pair truck drivers with shippers, as reported by Business Insider. Citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter, the financial news agency revealed that the company may launch this “Uber for trucking” app in the summer of 2017.
Amazon’s foray into the trucking business will enable it to have full control over the entire supply chain. Apart from this, by tapping into the $800 billion trucking industry, Amazon will be able to broaden its reach as a logistic company.
Our Take
Timeliness has become one of the most important factors in the e-commerce space. As competition intensifies, Amazon needs to keep pace with others in the space, if not stay ahead of them. Creating a logistics service could help it to dramatically cut costs.