As long as customers knew what to expect, many shippers often found that they didn’t mind waiting a few extra days for a package that wasn’t time-sensitive. Slower transit times weren’t necessarily bad or the reason FedEx eventually did away with the service, however. Shippers needed to plan for an extra two to five days more than standard ground shipping, which, in some cases, doubled transit times. Shortly after its introduction, shippers realized that with SmartPost savings also came longer delivery times 1.5 days longer, on average. How Long Were FedEx SmartPost Delivery Times? Shippers may have been able to save money the year they switched some parcels from Ground to SmartPost, but soon enough, costs rose again and the savings were all but negated. Traditionally, base rates had risen by approximately 4.9 percent every year, with surcharges rising at a much faster pace. It was important for shippers to remember that SmartPost rates increased in line with other FedEx rates over the years. Package minimums also applied, although they differed from other FedEx services. In 2018, FedEx applied dimensional pricing to SmartPost shipments and ground shipments, but residential surcharges did not. However, most standard surcharges, including additional handling fees and peak season surcharges, still applied. On the surface, that may not have appeared to be much on a single parcel, but multiplied over hundreds of packages, the 20% savings added up for many shippers across the country. $25.30 in Zone 2 to $56.38 in Zone 8 for 30-pound packagesįedEx SmartPost was an estimated 20% cheaper than standard FedEx ground shipping costs at the time.$15.19 in Zone 2 to $21.25 in Zone 8 for 10-pound packages.$8.23 in Zone 2 to $9.96 in Zone 8 for one-pound packages.In early 2019, FedEx SmartPost rates included: Additionally, once you got outside of a zip code in the continental 48 states, fees quickly piled up.įedex SmartPost Was FedEx SmartPost a Cost Effective Solution? The unified tracking offering was reliable, but was occasionally confusing to some customers who didn’t realize their shipper was using SmartPost. SmartPost’s delivery time was slower than standard ground shipping by at least one day. SmartPost even offered a couple of advantages: shippers had access to all addresses served by USPS, some of which may not have been served by FedEx before, and there were no residential surcharges. To shippers, SmartPost often felt a lot like FedEx Ground, with both shippers’ and customers’ tracking abilities unchanged and package pickup remained the same way. Its mail carriers delivered to every address in the U.S., so why couldn’t FedEx pay USPS to complete that final leg of deliveries on its behalf? With SmartPost, FedEx delivered parcels to the post office nearest their final destination, then–usually the next day–USPS delivered them to customers. Postal Service was already driving those house-by-house routes every day. Instead of transporting dozens or hundreds of packages at a time, drivers would drop them off one by one. Normally, the last leg of this journey was from the final warehouse to customers’ doorsteps, but–at the time–this was the most expensive and inefficient part of the journey for FedEx. FedEx would then transport that shipment through its trucks, warehouses, and SmartPost specific sortation hubs. In this hybrid model, shippers gave parcels to FedEx in whatever way they normally did. What is FedEx SmartPost?įedEx SmartPost was a shipping service that utilized both FedEx’s ground shipping network and the U.S. In this article, we’ll discuss what FedEx SmartPost is, why it may have been abandoned, and how the parcel carrier now leans on Ground Economy instead. Since then, the company has rebranded and restructured the service again as FedEx Ground Economy Shipping. However, as the internet and online shopping grew in popularity, FedEx began to back off on its use of its SmartPost service beginning at the end of 2019. During its time, FedEx SmartPost connected shippers with customers through last mile delivery with the United States Postal Office, saving both FedEx and the shippers themselves time and money through the efficient practice. Shortly after, they rebranded it FedEx SmartPost and the new service went on to serve customers for just over 14 years. In September 2004, FedEx acquired parcel consolidator company Parcel Direct in an effort to grow their reach.
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