UPS Is Moving to 7-Day Delivery with the Help of USPS

UPS announced a number of initiatives on Monday including a move to 7-day pickup and delivery. The shipping carrier appears to be reacting in part to rival FedEx which in May announced it was moving to 7-day Ground residential delivery along with other moves targeting ecommerce shippers.

UPS stated on Monday: “Beginning January 1, 2020, UPS will offer customers pick-up and delivery services seven days per week. UPS will expand its current Saturday pick-up and delivery services for both residential and business locations and add new Sunday pick-up and delivery options. The seven day operation builds on UPS’s market-leading position by allowing shippers to reach consumers faster with the products ordered over the weekend.”

PostalNews.com pointed out UPS will use the USPS to help it expand its capabilities and quoted a UPS executive:

“We will leverage the combination of the UPS Network, UPS Access Point locations and SurePost in collaboration with the United States Postal Service to efficiently provide these exciting new capabilities,” said Kevin Warren, UPS Chief Marketing Officer. “Building on an expanded relationship with the Postal Service to help deliver seven day service to our customers makes good business sense.”

Among the other new services UPS announced:

UPS My Choice for Business
UPS My Choice for business, which allows small- and medium-sized businesses to easily monitor, plan and control deliveries and outgoing shipments. Features include a web-based dashboard, advance delivery notifications for “day-before” and “day-of” delivery alerts with estimated arrival times within two hours. Available July 29, 2019.

Expanded UPS Access Point Locations
Planned expansion of its UPS Access Point network over the coming months with up to 12,000 additional locations across CVS Pharmacy, Michaels and Advance Auto Parts stores, with initial store pilot efforts already underway. Growing to 21,000 in the U.S. and 40,000 globally.

Worldwide Economy Product
Building on the industry’s broadest portfolio, today the company also launched UPS Worldwide Economy, a new deferred service designed to provide affordable and efficient international shipping options. The new offering supports international merchants’ desire to make more low-priced items available for cross-border e-commerce transactions. This new service initially will be available to UPS customers in the U.S., Canada, China, Hong Kong and the U.K., with additional key global markets being added in the near future. For more information, see UPS Worldwide Economy.

Additional initiatives include the following:

• Improving Time in Transit
• UPS Extended Hours Pickup for Next Day Ground Delivery
• UPS Establishes New Drone Subsidiary: UPS Flight Forward

You can find the full press release on the UPS website.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.