Daily Grommet, an online shopping site and product launch platform for innovative and undiscovered products has partnered with husband and wife entrepreneurs to launch Elephant Trunk, an innovative parcel drop box to keep packages safe and dry.
The European Commission has prohibited under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of TNT Express by UPS. The Commission found that the take-over would have restricted competition in 15 Member States1 when it comes to the express delivery of small packages to another European country. In these Member States, the acquisition would have reduced the number of significant players to only 3 or 2, leaving sometimes DHL as the only alternative to UPS. The concentration would therefore have likely harmed customers by causing price increases. Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON , Dec. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – In a video address to a global audience, U.S. Postal Service Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer Patrick Donahoe, and UPS Chairman and CEO Scott Davis announced a unique partnership designed to offer better service to customers, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and optimize operational efficiencies.
“We’ve named our partnership ‘Blue and Brown Make Green,’” said Donahoe. “By working together, the Postal Service and UPS are able to reduce costs, serve our customers better and achieve sustainability goals, such as reducing our carbon footprints.”
“It certainly describes what the Postal Service and UPS have been working on together,” said Davis. “The world is changing dramatically as we become a more global economy. And, it takes big ideas and bold moves to keep up. This collaboration to reduce the carbon footprint of our respective supply chains is the sustainability wave of the future,” Davis added.
The Postal Service is the world’s largest mail service, delivering nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail to more than 151 million addresses in America. UPS is the world’s largest package delivery company, and is one of the leading global providers of specialized transportation and logistics services. In 2011, UPS delivered more than four billion packages and documents to more than 220 countries and territories.
In the USPS/UPS partnership video Donahoe and Davis discuss their efforts to improve service to their customers, reduce costs and improve the environment. While USPS and UPS are keen competitors, they also are each other’s customers.
USPS delivers many of UPS’s packages through its “last mile” network which is leveraged to provide services including Parcel Select* and Parcel Return, the latter, a convenient service for UPS customers to drop returnable merchandise at Post Offices for UPS retrieval and return to retailers. Last year, UPS carried millions of pounds of USPS letter and package mail across the country and around the world on its extensive air and ground transportation networks.
“Our working relationship with UPS supports the Postal Service’s goal to deliver mail at the lowest cost with minimal impact on the environment,” added Donahoe. “It’s a great template for how posts and private enterprises can work together to better serve customers, the planet and the bottom line. We hope our partnership can serve as a model for others to work together in new ways, whether they are competitors, collaborators, customers or all the above.”
Donahoe and Davis concurred that by seeking opportunities to be cost effective and create a cleaner, more sustainable environment together, USPS and UPS can deliver a better and greener future for generations to come.
The Postal Service participates in the International Post Corporation’s Environmental Measurement and Monitoring System (EMMS), the global postal industry’s program to reduce its carbon footprint 20 percent by 2020 compared to 2008. UPS is providing sustainability data to USPS for that program. The USPS/UPS partnership video and EMMS report also can be found at http://sustainability.ipc.be/en/best-practice-cases/USPS.aspx.
ORLANDO, April 5, 2012 – The UPS Store ® franchise network (NYSE:UPS) has been honored by the U.S. Postal Service® at the National Postal Forum here for its participation in Every Door Direct Mail®, which provides small businesses with a cost-effective way to send direct mail.
Last year, The UPS Store announced it was collaborating with the U.S. Postal Service on Every Door Direct Mail to help support direct mail growth along with its own objectives of growing its print business and supporting local small businesses.
Using Every Door Direct Mail, small business customers can work with their local The UPS Store center to create, print and distribute high-quality direct marketing pieces to every address in a designated neighborhood.
“Every Door Direct Mail is a ready-made product for The UPS Store franchisees, who help fellow small business owners with the logistics of running a small business,” said Stuart Mathis, president of Mail Boxes Etc., Inc. (MBE), which franchises The UPS Store locations. “We are honored by this recognition and look forward to continuing our relationship to help grow both our businesses as well as support the small business community.”
Companies nominated for the Mail Innovation Award have demonstrated creativity by finding new ways to use the mail to drive significant business results and mail growth. Since the start of the relationship in September 2011, MBE and U.S. Postal Service have worked together to educate The UPS Store franchise owners on the process as well as how best to position the program to small businesses in their communities. The UPS Store dedicated October 2011 as Every Door Direct Mail Month, promoting the direct mail product to its network of franchised small business owners as well as their customers.
“In addition to providing this service to their small business customers, our franchisees have used Every Door Direct Mail to market their own businesses,” added Mathis. “And they’ve seen results, attracting and retaining small business owners in their communities.”
According to an article in Logistics Management, the “star” of United Parcel Service’s impressive fourth quarter performance was its Sure Post product, which uses the US Postal Service to actually deliver B2C parcels:
Jerry Hempstead, principal of Hempstead Consulting, said that the biggest admission on the call by UPS was that the star its fourth quarter performance was its new Sure Post product offering, which is a contract-only service that combines the consistency and reliability of the UPS Ground network, from pickup through transferring to the Post Office, with the cost benefits of using the United States Postal Service (USPS) for final delivery.
“All the talk was of the extraordinary growth they saw in B2C and it’s obvious from the numbers that this segment can be wildly profitable when one uses that truck and driver that goes to every home six days a week operated by the Postal Service,” he said. “For the first nine months of the year UPS’s ground volume was down slightly year-over-year, but because of the volume surge in the fourth quarter it finished ahead of last year by 0.8 percent. Modest for sure but that’s still a lot of packages.”
via UPS reports 6 percent increase in Q4 2011 revenue – Article from Logistics Management.
UPS Press release:
San Diego, September 22, 2011
Retail Outlets Offering Affordable Direct Mail Program from Print to Distribution
The UPS Store ® (NYSE: UPS) and the U.S. Postal Service ® are working together to provide small businesses with a new, cost-effective direct mail program.
By identifying geographic areas by city, neighborhood or a specified distance from their businesses, the U.S. Postal Service’s Every Door Direct Mail-Retail (EDDM Retail or EDDM-R) service allows small businesses to advertise to every delivery address in their target markets without the need for a mailing list.
“When it comes to marketing, it is important for small businesses to make it local,” said Stuart Mathis, president of Mail Boxes Etc., Inc., franchisor of The UPS Store. “By working with the U.S. Postal Service, The UPS Store franchise network now provides one convenient destination for the small business community to effectively and efficiently communicate with their target audiences.”
The EDDM-R program allows small business customers to work with their local The UPS Store center to print and distribute high-quality direct marketing pieces to every address in a designated neighborhood.
“With the assistance of their local The UPS Store center, the customer does not have to worry about the process,” said Tom Bellino, co-owner of multiple The UPS Store franchises in Chicago, who recently completed a 20,000 direct mail piece for Simon’s Shine Shop. “We offer standard sizes, handle the bundling, completion of the documentation and coordination with the local post office.”
And to make print marketing even easier, through Oct. 10, small business owners can maximize their message with “3 FOR ALL,” a The UPS Store promotion giving customers 30 percent off the purchase of three eligible products, including printing on direct mail postcards. More information, including a list of eligible products, is located on The UPS Store Facebook page.
The UPS Store centers help with the logistics of running a small business, including mailboxes with a real street address, packing and shipping services and professional printing services such as: color and black-and white prints; binding; lamination; finishing, and folding. Customers can select from a variety of print products, including presentations, flyers and brochures, business cards, menus and more. Participating locations also offer online printing and wide-format printing.
For more information on The UPS Store products or services, or to find a location near you, please visit www.theupsstore.com/logistics.
UPS (NYSE: UPS) today unveiled UPS Returns® Exchange, a combined delivery and pick-up service that gives businesses more control over their reverse logistics for high priority products.
The new service, unveiled at the Interlog 2011 Summer conference here, is particularly suited to shippers in the high-tech, healthcare and retail industries. UPS Returns Exchange makes the replacement of high value products, such as electronics, more efficient while enhancing the post-sales experience for end customers. The new service will be offered in multiple countries around the world and will be an industry-first in North America.
With the new service, a UPS driver delivers a replacement item while simultaneously retrieving the item marked for return such as a defective laptop computer. The driver assists the customer in packing the return item in the box used for the replacement, then it’s shipped back to the original company. UPS tracking tools link the replacement and return shipments, providing end-to-end visibility of the entire transaction, and customers receive a pre-alert the day before delivery.
“This innovative service brings our expertise in shipping and reverse logistics straight to the customer’s door, giving them the advantages of speed and convenience,” said Geoff Light, vice president of new product development. “UPS Returns Exchange enables a company to increase customer satisfaction by providing rapid replacement of an important item while improving the company’s bottom line.”
In addition to improving the customer experience, UPS Returns Exchange reduces cost, cuts CO2 emissions and optimizes inventory management through improved visibility of the return and repair process. For example, those shippers who today send empty boxes to customers and then dispatch UPS a second time to retrieve an item no longer will have to take that first step, eliminating one delivery and saving fuel and cutting emissions. Also, waste is reduced by reusing the replacement item’s packaging for the return shipment. Finally, by ensuring that the return item is properly packaged, UPS translates damage reduction into cost savings and also ensures responsible disposition of items beyond repair.
UPS Returns Exchange will be available to customers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Mexico and Puerto Rico in October.
UPS CEO Scott Davis was asked about the future of the US Postal Service yesterday in an interview for the Oregonian. Davis suggested that “Clearly, there’s a role for the post office”, and noted that “the post office is a competitor of ours and a customer of ours and we have a pretty good relationship”.
Davis also said that the USPS needs to “reduce services, reduce post offices”, to become “fiscally sound”.
Davis pointed to the USPS’s uniform pricing for letters and flats as the agency’s “big political challenge”: “For us to deliver every package around the world at the same price, it just wouldn’t work.”
What’s odd about Davis’s comment is that the USPS doesn’t “deliver every package around the world at the same price” any more than UPS does- priority and parcel post rates are based on distance, the same as UPS and FedEx. It’s only first class and standard letters and flats that get the flat nationwide rate- markets that UPS doesn’t compete in, and, contrary to conservative political dogma, has never shown any desire to compete in.
Update: I received a tweet pointing out that the USPS offers flat rate Priority boxes and envelopes good for shipping anywhere in the US. That’s true- but it has nothing to do with the Universal Service Obligation- it was a marketing decision. The USPS has no obligation to provide a flat rate Priority option, and could eliminate it tomorrow if it chose to. (It’s also worth noting that the USPS now offers “Regional” flat rate Priority boxes that are cheaper than the nationwide flat rate boxes- zone based pricing by another name.) The “political challenge” Davis refers to is strictly the USO requirement.
UPS (NYSE: UPS) today announced adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.08 for the fourth quarter of 2010, a 44% improvement over the prior-year period. Global revenue grew 8.4%, generating $1.8 billion in adjusted operating profit, a 40% increase.
On a reported basis, diluted earnings per share totaled $1.11, a 48% increase over the $0.75 reported for the same period last year. During the quarter, UPS recorded a net after-tax gain of $32 million related to the sale of certain non-core business units.
For the full year 2010, the company delivered 3.9 billion packages, an average of 15.6 million per day. Revenue increased 9.4% to $49.5 billion. Adjusted operating profit soared 47% to $5.8 billion with the International and Supply Chain & Freight segments achieving record-setting levels, generating $1.9 billion and $577 million, respectively. On a reported basis, operating profit for the year was $5.9 billion, up 55%. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $3.56, up 54%, and $3.48 on a reported basis, up 63%.
"UPS again demonstrated exceptional earnings growth by leveraging the strength of its network to provide solutions for customers," said Scott Davis, UPS chairman and CEO. "I’m encouraged by the opportunities we see in 2011 as UPS continues to expand into emerging markets while demonstrating the power of the logistics capabilities we’ve built worldwide."
Based on expectations for 2011, UPS is providing annual guidance for diluted earnings per share to a range of $4.12-to-$4.35, an increase of 16-to-22% over 2010 adjusted results. This would exceed the peak earnings level recorded in 2007.
More: UPS 4th Quarter Earnings Surge 44 Percent, 2011 EPS Expected to Set All-Time High – UPS Pressroom.
