Quote Originally Posted by Gman View Post
The point was made that seasonal peaks were the problem. Retailers and shippers make most of their money during the holiday season. Car dealers have seasonal peaks. Jewelry stores have seasonal peaks. Yes, even turkey producers have seasonal peaks. This shouldn't have been such a big surprise to UPS as many lines of business have to deal with seasonal peaks. Get it?
I totally do, don't get me wrong. I just don't think UPS scales with the agility of Kohl's / Target or a call center somewhere. To your point, they aren't "making" anything, true. But shipping is unbelievably complicated. I guess I have some respect for it knowing it is way outside my own wheelhouse. In other words, I sure wouldn't want to own that problem.


Quote Originally Posted by Gman View Post
The wife's family makes their wish lists on Amazon and we order early. I didn't have anything come late for the holidays.

UPS will reap the rewards of their business failings whether we disagree that this will be filed as 'no big deal'. The business side of this discussion doesn't forgive so easily.

If you really want to talk about a crappy shipping model, how 'bout the arrangement where UPS ships to the USPS hub for delivery to the final addressee (UPS Mail Innovations).
I can't really disagree with much here. I think most of this is correct, and the only minor counter I'd even have is that USPS got pretty beat up in all this as well this holiday season. Probably less because no one expects much of them.
The shipping world is basically an oligopoly with none of the players primed to take over completely if one were to fail, and all three have nicely carved out their niche. So while I think you are correct that they'll reap the "rewards" of this in the business world, until a serious game-changer comes along (the drone thing maybe?), I'm just not sure I expect radical improvement.

Agree 100% with the UPS -> USPS hub. That is some serious BS. But, like everyone else, I basically just take it.