FedEx Unveils Senseaware Drop-In Package Sensor [Senseaware Monitors Your FedEx Package & Sends Online Updates Your Way]
Posted by Chris Smith on November 25th 2009 | Respond?
Do you trust your delivery guy with your sensible packages? I know I always wonder if the stuff I send or I am about to receive will travel safely and I’d definitely try one of those drop-in sensors that FedEx has announced. The Senseaware is a cool gadget which will be able to deliver constant online updates related to the package you have sent or are about to receive.

So how does Senseaware works? The device comes with specific sensors that can figure out for you the temperature or the exact location of the package. It will also tell you whether the package has been opened, exposed to light or dropped. The accelerometer is something I’d certainly appreciate as it will be able to tell me if the package has been damaged in any way by unwanted drops during transition.

The Senseaware is about the size of a BlackBerry and comes with temperature and light meters, accelerometer, GPS and a cellular antenna. That’s how the device communicates with the web interface in order to deliver accurate information about the progress of the package in question.

Sure since we’re talking about a new technology that’s about to be made available, you can expect bigger prices at first. The Senseaware costs $120 a month right now but the price is expected to go down as FedEx sells more and more sensors. The current price will be out of reach for regular customers that don’t send and receive that many packages. But companies that ship lots of products will start buying those devices in order to closely monitor the integrity of the shipped goods. The more sensitive the contents of those packages, the more interested will customers be in acquiring such a gadget.

The official trial of this Senseaware technology is expected to take place in Spring 2010 and if everything goes well we might see FedEx roll out the product worldwide very soon after the trial runs. In the mean time the competition should start working on similar products, wouldn’t you agree?

Holiday Packages: Who Ships Fastest, Cheapest?

POSTED: 2:27 pm EST November 24, 2009
UPDATED: 8:26 am EST November 25, 2009
CLEVELAND — ‘Tis the season for spending sprees that result in large shopping bags filled with lots of gifts for friends and family that need to be shipped. There are many options when it comes to your shipping needs.

NewsChannel5 and its sister station, ABC15, in Phoenix, did a shipping test to see which shipping company could churn out the best price and fastest route for our care packages.

To test the cost, NewsChannel5 Consumer Reporter Joy Benedict went to Target to get some heavy items like soup, bags of candy and candles.

Benedict packed up the same items in separate boxes and while that was happening in Cleveland, folks in Phoenix were doing the same. The only exception was that Phoenix was shipping out glassware to see if it would survive the trip.

Both stations went to UPS, FedEx, and the US Post Office.

This year, the post office is really pushing flat rate as the smartest option. There are four sizes ranging from $4.95 to $13.95. If you can fit it into the box, you’ll pay the flat rate according to the box size. Peggy Havanas from the U.S. Postal Service said, “that includes Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands.”

Benedict wanted to test the cost factor, so she chose the medium sized flat rate box that ships in two days for $10.35. The same items shipped priority mail in a store bought box rang up at $23.60, so we chose to send it seven day parcel post for $14.47.

Shipping the same items via UPS ground cost $12.74 while FedEx ground was $11.46.

The flat rate priority mail box arrived right on time in Phoenix and remember that was the least expensive method. The other three boxes took four days.

The glasses sent from Phoenix arrived in good shape, despite the box being a little smashed.

Our parcel post option was the most expensive, followed by UPS, and FedEx. FedEx offers free tracking, but the post office flat rate box was the cheapest and the fastest.

But the flat rate box is not always your cheapest option. If you are mailing something under three pounds, or somewhere in Ohio, you are better off buying your own box.

Always take the time to properly pack your boxes, with the heaviest items on the bottom. Double check the address to make sure it is correct. If the ZIP code is wrong, the package will take longer to reach its destination.

The sooner you can get organized and get your packages out the door, the better. Do not wait until the last minute. December 17-22 is expected to be the busiest shipping week this year. If you wait until afterwards, you’ll be paying even more to get them there on time.

When choosing a box, make sure its sturdy. Don’t use a box that has been used several times before.

When shipping electronics, ship them without the batteries inside the product. You don’t want the item making noises or to have it arrive with dead batteries.

Use shipping tape, too. Masking and duct tape are not good choices because one is too strong and the other is not strong enough.

FedEx to resume retirement matches, lift merit pay freeze Jan. 1
Wed. November 25, 2009; Posted: 04:04 PM  

Nov 25, 2009 (The Commercial Appeal – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) –
 FedEx will resume contributing to employee retirement accounts and lift a freeze on merit pay Jan. 1, reversing a pair of austerity measures put in place a year earlier.
Citing modest improvement in the economy, growing shipping volumes and generally healthier business, FedEx officials said they’ll restore half the company’s match of 401(k) retirement fund contributions for most employees.

Performance-based merit increases averaging up to 2 percent will be brought back. FedEx operating companies including FedEx Express, FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight have been cleared to reinstate merit increases in calendar 2010 compensation programs and schedules.

Among the cost controls still in effect are permanent pay cuts of 5 percent for all salaried exempt employees, more for higher executives, that were announced last December as part of an $800 million belt-tightening.

The 401(k) match will be restored to 50 percent of earlier rates except for FedEx Office, where the match will be 100 percent because the company doesn’t have a company-funded pension plan.

Chairman, president and CEO Frederick W. Smith announced the moves in an e-mail Tuesday to FedEx employees, who number more than 275,000 worldwide and 33,000 in the Memphis area.

Positive signs include a forecast that daily volume will hit a 2009 peak of 13 million packages Dec. 14, up from 12 million last Dec. 15. Quarterly earnings for the June-August first quarter came in higher than expected, and the next earnings report is due out Dec. 17.

The Savings Experiment – Week 15: What’s the Best Way to Ship Your Gifts? posted Oct 22nd 2009 3:01PM by Bruce Hamilton in Savings Experiment By Jane Tuv ‘Tis the season for holiday shopping and gifting, and while hundreds of Black Friday discounts help us save on presents, holiday shipping often dents our budgets. Many online merchants offer free shipping, but for those of us with a knack for gift wrapping and shopping in person, old-fashioned package shipping with the U.S. Postal Service, UPS or FedEx, is the preferred option. This is particularly helpful for budget shopaholics like me. Call me a savvy consumer who waits for store rewards coupons and the “biggest sales of the season” to get a maximum number of quality gifts at minimum cost. Or call me a procrastinator, for I am guilty of shipping my packages at most a week before the holidays and then paying exorbitant amounts on shipping to ensure delivery before Christmas. This year, I did some much-needed-for-my-wounded-bank-account research, and discovered that any procrastinating frugal shopper can mail packages to his or her loved ones last minute and save a lot of money on shipping. Check out my findings. Most of my family and friends live within a 15-mile radius, so in order to surprise them with a box of goodies, all I have to do is hop on the train, and deliver the presents myself (my favorite option, as I love watching them eagerly unwrap gifts, especially my adorable little nieces, who squeal at the sight of something they wished for). But I do have friends in Indianapolis and a couple in Los Angeles and Seattle, so I had to find a way to ship packages from New York to those destinations on a tight budget. Overall, all three services each had its own advantages. U.S. Postal Service’s flat rate box is in many cases the cheapest, but the size of the package has to be taken into consideration. FedEx Ground often took the least amount of days in transit for ground shipping. If it can’t fit into a flat-rate box, UPS has the advantage when shipping via two-day for heavier packages.

New Service Targets the Cost and Customer Service Impact of Undeliverable Shipments

Undeliverable Services from Newgistics aim to let merchants manage undeliverable shipments more efficiently and cost-effectively

By Editorial Staff

U.S. Consumer Postal Council Executive Director Don Soifer is interviewed on Fox Business on August 6, 2009, about the future of the U.S. Postal Service, in this video posted August 18, 2009.

Austin, TX — November 4, 2009 — Small parcel delivery specialist Newgistics is offering a new set of undeliverable services designed to help shippers lower costs and improve service by allowing merchants to manage undeliverable shipments more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Undeliverable parcels are a huge expense for merchants, as they are typically returned at the full single-piece rate. Newgistics, which offers U.S. Postal Service-based small parcel delivery and returns management solutions, said that its new service includes dynamic change of address, address correction, move update, undeliverable mail handling, and forwarding services for shippers utilizing the Postal Service’s Parcel Select ground delivery service.

Newgistics said that its Undeliverable Services utilize OneShip, the company’s warehouse control system, to help merchants solve complex problems associated with “address hygiene” while reducing costs, improving efficiencies and creating a better shopping experience.

For example, if an address is not accurately entered during the order process or a customer has not updated their profile with a merchant following a move, Newgistics can identify the problem and correct the address on the package prior to delivery and report the correction to the shipper electronically.

Armed with the updated address information provided by Newgistics in the correction process, the merchant has the ability to update their system without further delaying the delivery of the customer’s order. Alternately, if a customer refuses a delivery by writing “return to sender” on the package, Newgistics can intercept the package from the postal service, return it at a discounted rate, and inform the merchant of the refusal days prior to its receipt at the client’s warehouse.

The merchant can use this advanced notice to stop pending shipments, more accurately manage inventory, reduce customer service costs and improve their management of chargebacks, Newgistics said. As a platform, OneShip manages the flow of packages and information through Newgistics’ network of SmartCenter locations, as well as capturing postal reporting events in a centralized location.

Postal Service eyes options beyond layoffs and buyouts

By Emily Long elong@govexec.com November 5, 2009

The U.S. Postal Service must look for new ways to generate revenue beyond simply reducing its workforce, said lawmakers and witnesses during a House hearing on Thursday.

Employee layoffs are not the only solution to digging the agency out of debt, said Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform’s federal workforce subcommittee. “It would be a mistargeting of our problems to look at the backs of our employees.”

But Lynch expressed disappointment over the agency’s consolidation and cost-savings efforts thus far, particularly because recent buyout offers have not generated enough employee interest to reduce the HYPERLINK “http://topics.govexec.com/Postal+Service/”HYPERLINK “http%3A%2F%2Ftopics.govexec.com%2FPostal%2BService%2F”Postal Service workforce.

The Postal Service is expecting a net loss of $7 billion for fiscal 2009.

Other than layoffs and buyouts, adding retail and other services could increase revenue, witnesses said. The Postal Service already has a partnership with Hallmark to sell greeting cards in 1,500 locations nationwide. USPS currently accepts passport applications, and is considering partnerships with a range of federal and state agencies to offer broader credentialing services. The subcommittee also questioned whether the agency could benefit from taking on some census functions for the 2010 decennial count.

“There’s a lot more we can do with the facilities that we have,” said Robert Bernstock, president of mailing and shipping services at the Postal Service.

The challenge, witnesses and lawmakers agreed, is to adopt new services without encroaching on those already provided by private companies. At the same time, the private sector could be the best source for creative solutions, and several committee members appealed to those with innovative ideas to help develop a business model.

Several witnesses offered foreign postal services as models for reform, citing innovation and limited political interference in their operations. While these additional freedoms are important, the Postal Service also must reflect its traditions and continue to support mail functions, said Ruth Goldway, chairwoman of the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission. “The rationale that ‘others are doing it’ does not satisfy this criteria,” she said.

Though new revenue streams are part of the Postal Service strategy, a reduction in delivery frequency, closings and a smaller workforce still warrant consideration, witnesses said. For now, according to Goldway, there’s no agreement on the cost savings with reduced service and location closings.

“At the end of the day, we need to increase the relevance of the Postal Service,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.

U.S. Postal Service Overhaul Captured in Latest Maponics ZIP Code Data Release

FedEx to add GPS/web-based service

UPS Projects Holiday Volume ‘Up Slightly’ From 2008 (Update3) Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By Mary Jane Credeur

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) — United Parcel Service Inc. projected moving 400 million packages in the peak holiday shipping season, “up slightly” from a year earlier when it scrapped a forecast because of the recession.

Dec. 21 will be the busiest day, with volume of 22 million shipments, Atlanta-based UPS said today. That would match UPS’s record 2007 forecast. The world’s largest package-delivery company doesn’t report results after releasing its estimates.

UPS may be signaling improvement in its fourth-quarter outlook, said David Campbell, a Thompson Davis & Co. analyst in Richmond, Virginia. He expected a quarterly drop in domestic volume of 2 percent to 3 percent, based on executives’ comments in an Oct. 22 call.

“The company’s forecast that it would have a slight increase in the peak season is more optimistic,” Campbell said in an e-mail message. He rates the shares as “buy.”

UPS’s busiest period runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas. The company suspended its tradition of issuing peak-day projections in 2008 as the U.S. economy slid deeper into recession, and it didn’t give a year-earlier comparison for seasonal volume.

UPS rose $1.05, or 1.9 percent, to $57.74 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have climbed 4.7 percent this year, trailing the 23 percent gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Seasonal Hiring

Seasonal hiring will be 50,000 workers, down from about 60,000 two years ago when UPS last made a forecast. Fewer workers are needed partly because of improvements in package- sorting and routing technology, UPS has said.

UPS’s forecast excludes items such as freight and goods shipped via a partnership with the U.S. Postal Service, said Norman Black, a spokesman. FedEx Corp., the second-largest package-delivery company, included those shipments in its peak- volume day projection last week, said Carla Boyd, a spokeswoman.

FedEx projected moving 13 million shipments on Dec. 14, about 8 percent more than a year earlier.