Here's Your Virtual UPS Advertising Junk Box, Enjoy
Rhett writes, "I noticed your article UPS Now Delivers Bonus Junk Mail Packages and today, it started. I received a package from UPS Monday of this week with no bonus advertising. Today (Wednesday), this is what was on my front step."
Let's see, what have we got here? Something from Zappos, but we can't tell if it's a coupon or just an ad. There's a decent RedEnvelope coupon if you use that site. We always tend to ignore coupons for steak and coffee services, or any type of food membership club really. Same goes for flowers, so that rules out FTD. We're thinking the Johnson & Johnson coupon booklet might potentially be the one worth looking into here.
But really, did this pile of leaflets need a box? They could have at least thrown in some free samples. C'mon, UPS! Make with the cereal bars or razors!
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Comments:
The Bed Bath & Beyond coupon is pure class.
Eco friendliness at its best!
No Best Buy coupon for 10% off (20% higher than internet) regular prices?
I was hoping it would be more targeted. UPS knows who you order from (granted places like Amazon.com sell everything, so they can't really target based on that). However, if you order a lot of newegg or computer related stuff, they would have that in their database, and could charge MORE to CDW or another computer company to target to you. I don't eat beef - Omaha could send me a 90% of coupon that would go to waste.
I officially am never using UPS again. I just hope that FedEx doesn't start this BS.
I have that exact same couch...
@nakkypoo: I used to really like those coupons until I realized the things I need from there I can get way cheaper anywhere else. I bought a comforter there for like 120 with a coupon, but the quality sucked and I found a better one at Ross for 30 bucks.
@nakkypoo: Geez, I'm so sick of that coupon. The whole neighborhood gets papered with about two a month. Obnoxious.
Laaaaame. I would call and complain, personally. If I'm PAYING for a service, then I don't need to get your junk mail advertising with it!
You should call them and tell them that you received a package that you weren't expecting, and have them send someone to pick it up. Maybe if they get enough calls from people demanding that they stop this BS, they won't roll this out nationwide.
A test is a test...make it fail.
@wrjohnston19283: Actually it would be rather scary if they did start targeting. Do you really like the idea that someone knows what type of stuff you buy
@goodfellow_puck: True. It can be tolerated by the USPS because they can get a letter coast to coast for <$0.50. But you (or the merchant) are paying good money to use UPS.
WHO is paying for this package?
I am fairly certain it is NOT our friends at UPS especially as the marketing material was not exclusively products that could be shipped via UPS.
(hey, even UPS aint totally stupid)
The front of the package serves to reinforce the idea that somebody (other than UPS) is responsible for the contents of the package as the package says "delivered to you by UPS"
So WHO is doing this? An advertising/marketing firm is my guess.
Is UPS giving the firm an el cheapo shipping rate? Ya betcha. My UPS rates will go up Jan 4th 2010 with a nice little bonus increase to offset the big discount given to the favorite UPS customer.
@goodfellow_puck: Really? I had to sign up on their mailing list in order to get them at all. I must live in a bad neighborhood.
...no, wait, I know I live in a bad neighborhood.
You are giving UPS way too much credit. The diversity of products sold by key vendors, even the diversity of products sold by my company, would make such tracking next to impossible and most likely not very viable.
Maybe if we all pitched in we could get them to deliver fliers advertising Fedex. 'Ship your goods with us. We don't include junk mail like this with your packages'
That would piss them off.
@StanTheManDean: Not being a customer of UPS, I am curious, did they already tell you rates are going up? Or do they always change their rates in the beginning of January.
But my guess is that your rate (& mine, such as when I have to visit the ups store) is more affected by their sponsorship of some race cars (and actual race titles, if they do that as well).
I am glad I'm not in the test market. But junk mail is junk mail, regardless of who delivers it. And for those of us who have to recycle, well, I sure hope there are some postage-paid envelope in the bunch, because that's what I would use to send them back. Funny, use USPS to return stuff delivered by UPS.
Looks like mostly the same kind of trash I usually get in regular post. If I got the box I'd glance at the individual contents, but unless something really awesome came in the first one or two boxes I received, after that I wouldn't bother to check very often again.
Kind of like how right now I use the various valupak type things for the scrap paper and don't even check the ads on the other side, because in 15 years of checking I've never seen anything of value for me.
Seal the box back up, mark it refused and drop it in the mail box. USPS should forward the shipment to UPS.
All I know is my Private Mail Box better not be sending me email notifications that 'a shipment has arrived' when they decide to start shoving this crap in my box.
Somehow, UPS decided there wasn't enough junkmail floating around.
I'm going to show them what a flaming bag of brown can do for them if I get this shit left at my door.
If this service is anything like the regular package service we get from UPS, I'll never see so much as a suggestion of their junk mail in my mailbox. I'll take their usual laziness, mishandling and refusal to deliver when it's advertising; just wish they didn't apply to the things I actually want delivered.
@Laura Northrup: I, too, love those coupons. My Bed Bath and Beyond lets you use one per item instead of one per trip. I hoard the coupons like nobodies business.
There's nothing like unsolicited packages sitting by a front door for a few days to let thieves know that nobody's home. Thanks UPS.
Would it be possible to have a restraing order against UPS? Is there any way to forbid them from delivering items to your property?
@LJKelley: you could boycott shippers who ship with them exclusively and always choose a different shipping option when there is one
What can brown do for me, you ask? It can go straight to hell, that's what.
Am I the only one who is amazed that they thought that fliers needed insurance?
How is this legal? It's supposed to be against the law for anyone other than the USPS to deliver regular mail-type items, which is clearly what this is. Junk mail to be precise.
The ONLY exception to this law is when you need to send urgent overnight documents, in which case the law allows you to use Fedex or UPS or a courier or whatever because they accept that sometimes the USPS is not the fastest way to send such things.
But the stuff you send has to be urgent in your opinion and in theirs if they audit. You can't just Fedex routine office mail or stuff that isn't actually important. The USPS has nailed companies for that and demanded back postage and penalties on things that should have gone first class. Seriously. They actually DO sue over this. I am not kidding.
Junk mail is clearly not an urgent mail item in any way, so it should not be legal for UPS to deliver this stuff. I don't think putting it all in a box is going to cut it.
@YouDidWhatNow?: Considering that the USPS has been the pioneer of this kind of stuff for years, I'm guessing it's just a matter of time before you have to drive cross-country to get and receive your packages.
Hey, suck it up. Cable companies do the same thing. Yep, you pay for advertising. Brilliant, eh?
@karmaghost: Actually, this is very like USPS in another way:
This is almost -exactly- the same junk mail they send you, in one big package, when you change your address, minus the one free sample I see up there (unless you opt out of it, with a checkbox hidden, I kid you not, -within- the fine print).
Well the funding comes from the advertising revenue generated by shipping these boxes to customers. UPS charges companies like Bed, Bath, and Beyond a fee to have their marketing material included in these packages. Yes the shipping rate is much less than the retail consumer, but UPS more than compensates by generating ad revenue in the deal (and likely includes shipping costs as part of the program fee).
So in theory there is no "offsetting" big discounted customers. If anything, they're netting a profit off the deal.
Oh wow! UPS has now come one step closer to becoming the USPS! YAY!