SHipMatrix

What made peak shipping season a success?

By all accounts, the 2021 holiday peak season avoided the shipping disasters of previous years. There were likely several reasons for this, including consumers shopping earlier than ever and a push by the delivery firms to hire seasonal personnel.

In fact, according to the founders of last-mile mapping firm Beans.ai, that last part played a significant role.

“The solution was money. The spike in both salaries and bonuses was motivating enough for people to join [as drivers],” Nitin Gupta, CEO of...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/what-made-peak-shipping-season-a-success

FedEx faces its quarters of truth

On FedEx Corp.’s mid-December analyst call, Frederick W. Smith, FedEx’s founder, chairman and CEO, was asked by Scott Group, an analyst at Wolfe Research, to comment on the prospects for profit margin improvement in the quarters ahead. Smith, making a cameo appearance to answer questions specifically for him, said “there is a massive margin improvement opportunity” at the company.

He then directed his second-in-command, President and COO Raj Subramaniam, to fill in the blanks.

Those seven words...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fedex-faces-its-quarters-of-truth

Parcel delivery’s phantom peak-mageddon

The port congestion, rail bottlenecks and soaring costs that bedeviled many U.S. supply chains during 2021 didn’t become headline news until the fall. With the holiday shopping season looming, the mainstream media couldn’t get enough of stories linking supply chain problems with the potential for stockouts and late or missed deliveries.

By the end of the year, the non-trade press folks had quietly left the scene with few, if any, horror stories to report. That’s because the holiday delivery...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/parcel-deliverys-phantom-peak-mageddon

UPS, Postal Service excelled during peak delivery season, consultant says

UPS Inc. and the U.S. Postal Service turned in stellar delivery performances during the peak  holiday season, while FedEx Corp. lagged, according to data published late Friday by consultancy ShipMatrix Inc.

UPS (NYSE: UPS) delivered 96.9% of all parcels within its stated commitment times throughout the peak cycle, while the Postal Service delivered 96.5% of its parcels on time, according to ShipMatrix data. FedEx (NYSE: FDX) delivered 88.2% of its parcels within its stated commitment times. The...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ups-postal-service-excelled-during-peak-delivery-season-consultant-says

Central Freight Lines’ cautionary tale

The shutdown earlier this month of regional LTL carrier Central Freight Lines Inc. (CFL) is a reminder that even in the midst of perhaps the strongest financial and operating cycle in the industry’s history, the complex model can still humble the best of carriers and ruin the worst.

The loss of Waco, Texas-based CFL is unlikely to tighten LTL capacity any more than it currently is. CFL controlled just 0.6% share of the $42 billion-dollar-a-year industry, according to ShipMatrix, a consultancy....

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/central-freight-lines-cautionary-tale

Postal Service stands out in latest peak delivery performance report

The three major parcel carriers’ peak-season delivery performances for the week ending Dec. 11 were roughly in line with the prior week’s levels, while the U.S. Postal Service reported the best year-over-year improvement, according to data published Friday by consultancy ShipMatrix Inc.

From Dec. 5-11, the Postal Service clocked in with an on-time rate of 95%, up from 87.5% during the same period in 2020 though slightly below the prior 2021 week. UPS Inc. (NYSE: UPS) reported a 95.8% on-time...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/postal-service-stands-out-in-latest-peak-delivery-performance-report

Does Amazon need a separate network to court outside shippers?

In April 2020, already struggling with deliveries of e-commerce volumes of an unforeseen magnitude, Amazon.com Inc. said it would suspend a pilot program in the U.S. designed to deliver non-Amazon packages. The program, which was shut down that June, has not been restarted, and the company has not said publicly that it will be.

Various experts have said that a reboot will occur over the next one to two years as Amazon Logistics, Amazon’s delivery arm, dramatically expands its air and ground...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/does-amazon-need-a-separate-network-to-court-outside-shippers

Peak parcel demand to exceed capacity by 4.7M daily shipments — report

White delivery vans parked in a lot.

Demand for peak-season parcel delivery services in the U.S. will exceed the total capacity of the nation’s delivery network by about 4.7 million parcels a day, according to a detailed forecast by consultancy ShipMatrix.

The data indicates that, like the unprecedented 2020 peak delivery season, shipping activity during the upcoming peak will surpass the infrastructure’s ability to handle it. However, the projected differential this year is much narrower than the 7.3 million daily gap that the...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/peak-parcel-demand-to-exceed-capacity-by-47m-daily-shipments-report

How Pandion Is Revolutionizing E-Commerce

Pandion, the first parcel network designed for the unique challenges of e-commerce, emerged from stealth today and announced the close of a $4.9 million seed round led by Playground Global and Schematic Ventures, with participation from AME Cloud Ventures and Innovation Endeavors, reports Business Wire.

E-commerce demands

Pandion will use the proceeds from this round to grow the team and expand ongoing customer pilots.

Pandion’s founder and CEO, Scott Ruffin, has over 20 years of experience in...

https://mfame.guru/how-pandion-is-revolutionizing-e-commerce/

Amazon to continue pouring billions into transport network, CFO says

Amazon

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) late Thursday posted strong third-quarter results, with net revenue of $96.1 billion exceeding the high end of its estimates, and net income of $12.37 a share exceeding analysts’ median estimates by more than $5 a share.

The Seattle-based giant also said that transportation costs accounted for more than half of its $30 billion in capital expenditures for the first nine months. Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s CFO, said transportation network investments will consume at...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/amazon-to-continue-pouring-billions-into-transport-network-cfo-says

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