UPS to eCommerce - "Stop last minute shipping"

[spuwho]

Per the Orlando BJ:

UPS wants retailers to stop encouraging last-minute Christmas deliveries

United Parcel Service is pushing retailers to stop offers of free overnight shipping on Dec. 23 to help avoid a fiasco like the one last Christmas when many customers did not get deliveries until after the holiday.

Atlanta-based UPS is asking e-commerce companies to hold big sales in mid-December rather than in the last days before Christmas, and is also asking retailers to stagger offers geographically, reports The Wall Street Journal. For example, the paper said, a GoPro camera would go on sale one day in Texas and on a different day in Florida.

In 2014, shopper procrastination, bad weather and a compressed calendar resulted in millions of gifts arriving after Santa, the paper adds.

UPS Chief Executive Officer David Abney told the WSJ his company wants to work with retailers, but that you can't encourage everyone to say, "Hey, just wait and ship the last day.'"

While many retailers are working to provide better package volume estimates, they are hesitant to back away from the final rush, the paper said.

[mbwright]

A little common sense.  I loved how everybody blamed UPS for their own stupidity.  I love this generation that feels nothing is their fault, and blame others.

[Lunican]

This is ironic because stores are now advertising for Christmas in September.

A better idea would be to stop buying a bunch of crap.

[Steve]

Ummm.....can't really do that, UPS. If you offer it, people will take advantage.

What if an ecommerce company decided, since Cyber Monday load is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than any other day of the year, to tell people that they should come back tomorrow? You really think people wouldn't go find someone else.

FedEx must love this.

[spuwho]

The answer for UPS is really easy. Raise their prices as it gets closer to Christmas.

An Econ 101 class can figure it out.

If you have lousy contracts with the eCommerce outfits that dont allow for demand pricing, dont blame them for taking advantage of a favorable contact term.

Either update your contracts or hire the people you need and stop blaming your customers.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

The answer for UPS is really easy. Raise their prices as it gets closer to Christmas.

I don't think it works that way.  Doesn't UPS refund your shipping charge when they don't make a 'guaranteed' delivery?

You could say that a lot of the large e-com distributors might even be using this as a strategy to actually cut-down on shipping charges.  Theoretically, if UPS is already taking the blame for packages not being delivered on time, then how would that hurt the reputation of, say, Amazon?

So your theory of charging more wouldn't matter in my scenario since the majority of the charges are going to be refunded anyhow after UPS fails to meet their guarantee.