UPS adds Saturday ground pickup service offering

Weekends are now a workday more so than ever for UPS, with the company announcing today it has introduced Saturday ground pickups.

A main benefit of this news for UPS shipper customers is that it allows many businesses to have packages delivered to customers on Monday, a day earlier than before. And it added that with Saturday delivery, UPS residential and commercial recipients can get ground packages that would previously arrive on Monday on Saturday. The service will expand to 15 additional metropolitan areas in April and another 4,700 United States cities and towns by the 2017 holiday shipping season, with plans to expand to more than 5,800 cities and towns in 2018.

Through this effort, UPS said it has increased operating capacity while not making additional investments in buildings, vehicles, or trucks, with the company noting that it will create more than 6,000 new jobs when it is fully implemented.

This service was driven by feedback from shippers and consumer, with a prevalent theme that in the world of e-commerce, nothing is too fast, a UPS spokesperson told LM.

“UPS is a global company, so any change of this magnitude involves detailed planning and testing to ensure it is rolled out seamlessly,” she said. “We began formal tests last year, and the service was met with enthusiasm.”

The Saturday ground pickup testing in 2016 was done in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

UPS said that further expansion is now underway in those cities, with another 15 cities coming online to:

• Indianapolis-Carmel, IN MSA;
• St. Louis, MO-IL MSA Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX MSA;
• Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA;
• San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA MSA;
• Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH MSA;
• New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA;
• Syracuse, NY MSA;
• Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA MSA;
• Pittsburgh, PA MSA; Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY MSA;
• Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI MSA; Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO MSA;
• Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL;
• IN-WI MSA; Knoxville, TN MSA;
• Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH MSA.

The UPS spokesperson said that with Saturday ground delivery UPS customers can get a faster ground delivery solution, which she said is key given the speed of e-commerce today. And she said that paired with more than 8,000 UPS Access Point locations and UPS My Choice, this service expansion significantly enhances a shipper’s ability to get packages to consumers where and when they want them delivered.

The 2016 pilot program provided ways for UPS to make this service more efficient for shippers and consumers.

“Simply, our global network is faster and more competitive,” she said. “Residential and commercial recipients can get ground packages that would previously arrive on Monday on Saturday, which means the weekend can be that much more productive UPS will also pick up and sort packages on Saturday, so the operating capacity is increased with no additional investment in buildings, vehicles or trucks. It is a win-win for everyone.”

Aside from e-commerce, UPS said shippers in myriad industries ranging from automotive to healthcare, are likely to benefit from this news, as it enables them to add a sixth day to ship and receive and also turn inventory faster, use space more efficiently and be more productive.