FedEx is leveraging Dollar General store locations as it pushes more aggressively into ecommerce. The shipping carrier announced on Monday it will add over 8,000 Dollar General stores to its network of package drop-off, return, and hold-for-pickup options.
FedEx has signaled it’s getting more aggressive in serving online merchants, announcing it was dropping its contract with Amazon for Express air deliveries and expanding residential delivery to 7-day service.
One key benefit it pitched to merchants: offering customers easier returns. “While a physical store is not required to play in the e-commerce game, there are certainly benefits,” it wrote, citing research from Internet Retailer that found 47% of customers prefer to make returns in-store. “With the addition of more than 8,000 Dollar General stores – bringing our network to more than 62,000 FedEx retail locations – online merchants can enjoy the perks of a physical store without having to invest in building one.”
FedEx is planning to expand that network: it anticipates that by the end of 2020, the percentage of US customers within five miles of a FedEx dropoff and pickup location will increase from 80% to over 90%, calling that a “game change” for sellers of all sizes.
In its release on Monday, it wrote: “This announcement comes on the heels of the news of launching FedEx Ground 7-day service in 2020 – making every day a delivery day – and testing the new SameDay Bot in select markets this summer. While these are great growth opportunities for FedEx, the real winners are e-commerce merchants – of all sizes – and the shoppers who enjoy their products.”
SOURCE: FedEx Press Release
If they want a push into eCommerce, how about allowing more lucrative contracts for small and medium sized businesses? Instead of giving the middle man the dicsounts like ebay, who then are very selective on who they pass savings to, Fed Ex can stop being idiotic and create immense business by luring people like me into their services with cheap prices.
Same with ups and usps! they all need to start targeting small to medium and give us breaks, which will allow us to grow, and *gasp* ship even more packages.
How cute. Dollar General just close their store in our town.
Our small town just added a Dollar General a few years ago. It would be convenient for us to send Fedex packages at a Dollar General, or drop off Fedex returns there, but I wouldn’t want to have to go to a Dollar General to pick up packages, like those sent via Fedex SmartPost.. We prefer home delivery. Companies that use Fedex SmartPost would lose our business if they start sending our packages to Dollar General for pickup. In our town, it would be more inconvenient than the post office, which also does not deliver these packages to our home, but does provide an “after hours” keyed pickup box.
FedEx damaged or failed to deliver every other package. I stopped buying from merchants who didn’t offer USPS or UPS. They also have never paid their insurance claim on lost or damaged items, so don’t EVER pay that fee.
When I shipped with them years ago, I used to drop off at the Columbia campus FedEx before I stopped using FedEx entirely-shipments and deliveries. There’s a UPS drop off a few hundred feet away, so it’s a busy spot. My drop-offs were regularly not picked up on time because the kid doing pick-ups would finish his route early, fill his truck with what was in the store, and go home at 4:30. Add to that: Ground shipments can only go on a Ground truck, which are hard to locate. (UPS and USPS trucks take any shipping method in any truck.) Further, I’ve never known my FedEx delivery person’s name because they’re different every other week. No one lasts long enough to make a relationship with. I know all of my other carriers, including my DHL guy who just passed his 20 year mark with the company. The end for my business with FedEx came when I had to catch a plane to a funeral. My package was out for delivery, so I went to find the truck. The 19 year old driver had just gone on break. He was playing on one of those two wheeled battery-operated hoverboards next to the truck while talking to me. He said he couldn’t clock in to give me my package until his break was done, so I waited for 15 minutes while an adolescent practiced tricks with his wheeled toy. I tried to offer him money to sign for me since the plane wasn’t going to wait. He said that I might be a supervisor sent out to catch him … while riding his e-skateboard. The irony.