The shipment-tracking company\u2019s CEO Sriram Sridhar said that, when it came to ground shipments, both UPS and FedEx, \u201chad alarmingly high late delivery rates during the holiday season, with many major common shipping types performing two to three times worse than other time periods during the year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In a sampling of data that was shared with\u00a0Air Cargo World<\/em>, covering shipments between Nov. 27 and Dec. 24, LateShipment found the following:<\/span><\/p>\n Sridhar\u2019s analysis differs from most of the post-holiday season analysis, which largely commended the integrators on their handling of the surge in e-commerce deliveries.\u00a0Bloomberg\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0Michael Sasso, for example, wrote that \u201cUnited Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. delivered almost all of people\u2019s presents by Christmas Day, with the former company finishing strong after a bruising late November.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s not always good enough, says Sridhar, especially if customers expected their packages earlier. He is using his company\u2019s findings to call for accountability. \u201cBoth carriers suspended claims for ground shipments during the holiday season and relaxed delivery guarantees by up to several hours for other shipping types, taking away the ability that businesses have to hold them accountable for delays.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n UPS estimated that it delivered about 750 million packages this holiday season, which Mayer said was about five percent more than 2016\u2019s holiday volume of more than 712 million packages. That adds up to about 40 million more packages than last year. \u201cThe vast majority of packages were delivered in accordance with the service commitments for the specified time-in-transit. Further details will be available when UPS issues its quarterly earnings report on Feb. 1.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Mayer also said that there was, a \u201cwide difference in opinion,\u201d regarding UPS\u2019s performance.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that LateShipment.com\u2019s business model is predicated on collecting refunds for delayed shipments.<\/span><\/p>\n LateShipment.com said that the delays were more pronounced in urban areas. Less populated states in the central parts of the U.S. were not as severely affected during the holiday rush. \u201cIt is also interesting to note specific states have seen one carrier perform far better or worse than the other, which indicates how local delivery networks and issues with them can cause worse performance in specific areas for a certain carrier,\u201d Sridhar said. He cited the example of UPS performing far worse than FedEx, with respect to on-time deliveries in the Southeast, in states such as Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, where UPS on-time delivery rates were \u201cabout twice as bad as FedEx.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n What steps should the integrators take to offset these delays, or are they inevitable?<\/span><\/p>\n Sridhar told\u00a0Air Cargo World<\/em>\u00a0that \u201cthe uptick in shipping delays, especially during the busy holiday season is inevitable; however, that does not mean that integrators cannot do anything to minimize the probability of their shipments being affected.\u201d He said that available strategies included working with multiple carriers and switching between them when necessary and \u201cconsidering other shipping types for specific shipments that are very time sensitive, even if it involves a cost premium.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For more Logistics News,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Follow us on TWITTER <\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Follow us on FACEBOOK<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n With a wide spectrum of visibility options on the table, Sridhar also said that integrator often knew about delays well in advance. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNow, technology has progressed to an extent where it can automatically predict delays, raise alerts about packages that require attention and keep customers proactively informed about a delivery issue,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cUsing such technology tools to keep customers informed during the last mile delivery process often means that no customer goodwill is lost even when an unavoidable late delivery happens.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If your delivery arrived late this holiday season, you aren\u2019t alone. A post-holiday analysis of deliveries performed by\u00a0LateShipment.com found that both UPS and FedEx struggled to process record-high delivery volumes. The shipment-tracking company\u2019s CEO Sriram Sridhar said that, when it came to ground shipments, both UPS and FedEx, \u201chad alarmingly high late delivery rates during…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,69,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9334"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9335,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9334\/revisions\/9335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Cargo-Ad-1.png\")
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Jim Mayer, public relations manager for UPS Airlines, told\u00a0Air Cargo World<\/em>\u00a0that, \u201cWhile we don\u2019t comment specifically on outside performance estimates, which can vary widely in their methodology and accuracy, overall UPS performed well during peak season, with the vast majority of customers receiving their packages on time,\u201d he said. \u201cThe company experienced higher-than-planned demand during Cyber Week, which impacted on-time service delivery in select markets, but those issues were quickly resolved after we shifted employees and resources to those areas.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n