The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the United Parcel Service (UPS) will impose new "peak" surcharges on companies that "have been inundating its delivery network with many more packages and oversize items during the coronavirus pandemic." It is, the story says, "an unprecedented move to manage a summer flood of shipments and higher costs."
According to the piece, "The surcharge adds 30 cents on each package shipped under UPS Ground and SurePost, the service in which UPS drops packages at the Postal Service for delivery to homes. The added fee kicks in only on shippers that topped their average weekly volume in February by more than 25,000 packages."
The story notes that "retailers will have to calculate whether to raise prices, absorb the added cost or a combination of the two. They can also try workarounds to avoid the fee by closely monitoring the amount and sizes of packages they ship with UPS, using another carrier or nudging customers to pick up online orders in stores."
- KC's View:
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Seems reasonable to me … so much so that I think that maybe the US Postal Service, which is under the same kind of financial pressure as UPS (and additional political pressure), ought to consider the same thing.
I have to say that while as a consumer I love getting Sunday deliveries, I would have no problem if an online retailer gave me the option, but also passed along whatever the shipping surcharge might be for that service. Let me make the decision, let me prioritize. That seems eminently fair.
