No more wondering what your package gets up to while it’s out for delivery — did it stop for a drink and miss its connecting flight? — with a new service UPS is rolling out that allows customers to track their shipments in the final stage, from one second to the next. [More]
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UPS Changed Shipping Deadlines To Ensure On-Time Delivery
By 12.29.15
How do you make sure that packages shipped using three-day delivery service make it to their destinations on time during the week before Christmas? Retailers probably didn’t like the solution that UPS used this year, but it worked to prevent a last-minute rush of packages. They simply added a day to the shipping time during the runup to Christmas. [More]
Beware: Delivery Scams Are The Grinch Of The Holiday Season
By 12.21.15
With just days remaining before Christmas, you might be impatiently waiting for a few last deliveries to show up at your door. While those deliveries might be a sight for sore eyes, there’s another – of the scammy kind – that you should be on the look out for. [More]
Want Your Package To Make It Under The Tree? You Better Get Shipping Soon
By 12.14.15
The busiest shipping and mailing day of the year is upon us, with the U.S. Postal Service expecting to process more than 600 million cards, letters, postcards, periodicals, catalogs, and packages today alone. Gift givers who have already sent off their goodies shouldn’t encounter too many issues with their packages making it on time, but for the rest of us procrastinators, we might want to head to the post office, UPS or FedEx store sooner rather than later. [More]
UPS Having Trouble Handling Holiday Avalanche Of Online Orders
By 12.11.15
We already know UPS is renting additional vehicles to help with the onslaught of holiday deliveries, but it seems that’s not enough to help the company stay ahead of the avalanche of online orders this time of year. [More]
UPS: Don’t Panic If Your Package Is Delivered By A Driver Behind The Wheel Of A U-Haul
By 12.10.15
Though we’re all used to seeing UPS delivery drivers cruising around the neighborhood in their signature brown vehicles, if your package comes off the back of a U-Haul truck, it’s not a cause for panic. [More]
Here’s Why Costco And Whole Foods Made Consumer Reports’ 2015 Naughty List
By 11.23.15
Every year, Santa Claus makes a master list of which children have been naughty or nice in the preceding year, and rewards them accordingly. Our sibling publication, Consumer Reports, makes its own list of judgement, deciding whether companies, not individuals, have behaved themselves in the past year. The list isn’t an overall evaluation of the company’s products or practices, but a way to call out out specific examples of admirable or deplorable behavior from the last year. [More]
UPS Predicts 630 Million Packages Between Thanksgiving And December 31
By 10.27.15
FedEx predicted that they’ll process 317 million packages this holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, and now UPS has made their own prediction public: they anticipate processing at least 630 million packages this year, an increase of 10% over last year. There are two problems with that figure: UPS has been really bad at predicting package volume the last two years, and more of those items are being shipped to residential addresses. [More]
UPS Agrees To Pay $4.2M To Resolve False Delivery Claims With 17 States
By 10.21.15
We’ve all been there: you’re waiting for a package, you check the tracking, and it says they tried to deliver. Except you’ve been paying attention the whole time, and no knock has ever come. When it’s just one resident, that really stinks. When it’s a whole bunch of packages being delivered on government contracts, though, it’s lawsuit time. [More]
Amazon Planning To Hire 100,000 Temporary Workers This Holiday Season
By 10.20.15
While Amazon continues to deflect criticism of its workplace culture, the retailer announced plans to nearly double its workforce this holiday season: adding 100,000 temporary workers to its roster. [More]
UPS Increasing Fees, Fuel Surcharges For Larger, Oversized Packages — Just In Time For The Holidays
By 10.16.15
Shipping that new bike to your niece this holiday season will cost more than it did last year if you’re using UPS: the company announced that it’s upping the fees it charges customers to ship large, oversized packages as well as raising fuel surcharges on those items. [More]
FedEx & UPS Sticking With High Fuel Surcharges Even As Gas Prices Drop
By 10.6.15
Even as prices for both diesel gasoline and jet fuel have dropped, the country’s two largest parcel shippers have remained steadfast in maintaining surcharges that will make it more expensive for businesses to fulfill online orders this holiday season. [More]
Should The USPS Open Up Mailboxes To All Kinds Of Deliveries?
By 9.1.15
What are mailboxes? What are they used for, and what should they be used for? In the delivery biz now, companies are wondering what goes in our mailboxes, what a mailbox should be, and who should be allowed to have access to them. Now, only you and your mail carrier are legally allowed to use your mailbox. Should that change? Should package delivery companies have access? What about grocery deliveries? What about your dry cleaning? [More]
UPS Making It More Expensive For Retailers To Ship Your Large Purchases
By 6.16.15
When online retailers like Amazon began making a big splash with free or discounted shipping, a lot of what customers bought were books, DVDs, video games — items that didn’t take up much room. But now people are buying TVs, refrigerators, grills, furniture, and other large items online, and UPS is apparently tired of giving retailers a discount on these shipments. [More]
Are Your Packages Really More Secure With UPS’ New Access Point Service?
By 5.22.15
Last October, United Parcel Service announced it would attempt to cut down on delivery stops and protect consumers’ packages from sticky fingers with its Access Point service that drops off packages at local businesses where you can pick them up at your convenience. While the idea seems great in theory – who doesn’t want to protect their unattended packages? – in practice, it appears there are still a few kinks to work out: Mainly that people aren’t aware of the service, and the packages may not be as secure as we’d hoped. [More]
New York Seeking $180M In Lawsuit Accusing UPS Of Shipping Untaxed Cigarettes
By 2.18.15
A new lawsuit filed by the state of New York and New York City is accusing United Parcel Service of shipping more than 136 million contrabands cigarettes across the state in the last five years. Those smokes are worth a lot of tax dollars — about $5 million for NYC and $30 million for the state — and as such, the lawsuit is seeking $180 million in damages and penalties. [More]
UPS Hates Coming To Your House, To Begin Tacking On Surcharges For Residential Delivery
By 2.3.15
Last week, in advance of its quarterly earnings report, UPS admitted that it over-spent on holiday shipping in 2014 and that it wouldn’t make that mistake again. Today, with those quarterly earnings announced, the company announced how it’s going to make back some of its money — by tacking on surcharges for residential deliveries. [More]
UPS Sorry About That Driver Who Peed On House After Throwing Package
By 1.28.15
It’s nothing new to hear of a UPS, USPS or FedEx driver being caught on camera treating a customer’s package with reckless disregard for its contents. But what you don’t hear too much about are delivery drivers who, after mistreating the parcels with which they’ve been entrusted, decide to use the recipient’s house as a toilet. [More]
