Amazon’s holiday success and UPS’ holiday fail
gigaom.com
gigaom.com
This is the company that automatically distributes packages and generates optimal routes for its trucks. It's the company that can automatically account for changes in its transport graph and reroute. It's the company that does fuel consumption analysis and incorporates it into its truck routing algo.
Author really doesn't give UPS enough credit. It may have failed some deliveries yesterday, but crowing about how it's a stodgy beast and should embrace logistical technology like Amazon is preaching to the choir.
UPS oversubscribed their transport network, that's all. At some point, they should've stopped accepting packages for Dec 24th delivery, just like Amazon halted accepting new Prime members to maintain service for existing members.
There is only so much road, aircraft, and people willing to work Christmas Eve/Day out there. The physical world is inherently inelastic.
UPS missed a few packages in an insanely demanding crunch time, and you feel the need to pen an accusatory piece illustrating them as a complete failure?
I ordered all of my Christmas shopping the Saturday evening before Christmas, I got all but one thing, and I am, in fact, quite content with Amazon + UPS's performance.
There is a saying I like 'failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine'.
[Edited the saying, as I remembered it clearer)
Good for them. I respect that a lot more than them being able to deliver every single package on Christmas Eve.
I would imagine a spike in the amount of Amazon Prime memberships increased this week due to console purchases. My first experience with Amazon Prime's Instant Video automatically got me to shell out my credit card information for movies on my child's Wii U. I have now completely cut the cord on my cable broadcasting. $40/yr Amazon, $95.88/yr Netflix, $95.88/yr Hulu Plus, totaling $231.76 vs my yearly cable television bill of $900/yr (with an extra unmentioned $120 in random fees/taxes).
This year I signed up for a free 30 day trial of Prime so that I could skip on the cost of shipping for Christmas. I will cancel it before the trial period ends. Last year my wife did the same thing on her account.
So I would be curious how many of those are trial memberships, and what the statistics are after 30-60 days once all of those trials expire.
Try instead: "My gift to my niece was suppose to be delivered by the 24th. It will not arrive until the 27th, but her family flies back home on the evening of the 26th. Now I have to wait for it to be delivered, reship it myself at personal expense, and cannot watch her open it."
Believe it or not, reliable package delivery during Christmas actually is a big deal to consumers...
I mean, I've placed orders for next day delivery on christmas eve, but I'm a realist. I know the postal system is busy at this time of year, and that my item may be late or damaged.
We are nowhere near instantaneous transportation, so there will always be logistical delays. Planning your holiday purchasing around those delays is smart, assuming that 2-day shipping is always guaranteed and waiting until the last moment is playing with fire.
There's that moment when you feel the chill in your bones; a lone mourning dove flaps its wings in a bare-branched tree. You're sitting on the front steps of your house to prevent the dreaded door tag when you realize you've invested far too much into acquisitions and material goods and the international supply chain.
The holiday's what?
So, for the package in question, from where they shipped it, UPS Ground does guarantee 2-day shipping. At half the price of UPS 2nd Day Air. So... pretty smart.
Well one delivery this backfires when the driver takes the package to a house up the street and signs it as delivered. We check the tracking page, it says delivered. Give it a day or two, package still hasn't shown up. Alert UPS and the vendor. Eventually, the purchase was reimbursed. Maybe 2 weeks after that, the neighbor wanders down with the missing package. (This is a guy that isn't friendly towards my family because we do fireworks on the fourth of July, he holds a grudge for the rest of the year as a result.)
Anyway, ever since UPS made the error & delivered to the wrong address, they will no longer leave packages on our doorstep. We must be physically present to sign for the package - we cannot sign the slip and have them leave it the next day. Must be physically present. UPS comes at about 3pm. You can see how convenient this is.
You can sit in the house and watch as the UPS man runs up to each house on the street, drops a package, rings the bell, and runs off. But at our house, they always have to stop and wait. The delivery people must hate it as much as we do, since they have to fill out the paper slip if we're not around to answer the door at a time when most people are at work (luckily, one of us works from home now, but I can only imagine how bad the 3pm deliveries would be if that weren't the case.)
Long story short, my address is flagged (only by UPS) and someone must be physically present to receive the package. Which is a huge pain. Especially when vendors don't give you an explicit choice in the matter as much as they used to.
When I called to complain, the driver went back to the place and brought me the box with everything opened, packaging removed and discarded and seriously tried to deliver it to me. I had to argue to refuse it.
I've had bad UPS service before but that topped everything.
UPS always hires seasonal workers for the December rush. And since the workers are seasonal, the delivery vehicles also have to be seasonal. They can't afford to buy trucks that are parked for 11 out of 12 months. Lucky for them, fewer people move houses during the holiday season, so they can borrow U-Haul's spare capacity.
Even UPS's regular trucks have a driver and a helper during December. For the other 11 months of the year, the trucks only have one employee in them.
You may also have noticed the postal service doing multiple deliveries on the same day. It's easier to overlay the abnormal package volume on top of the regular mail delivery, rather than to split the mail routes.
The holiday rush has always been crazy like this. Nothing new in the Internet era except for additional volume.
Pretty sure all the physical mail carriers were clobbered this year and we're just at the tip of the iceberg of understanding why they were disorganized/unprepared/whatever.
SurePost, since he said it originated at UPS.
SmartPost is the competing service from FedEx.
Notice that both of them have the word "Post" in it. Thus, not surprising that they hand off the last mile to the postal service.
It's UPS Surepost. Shippers use it for packages that are price-sensitive but not time-sensitive.
You don't have to go to the post office to pick up the package. You can sign the release, and have them leave it at your door.