UPS is matching FedEx with a 4.9 per cent rise in published rates for most of its US- andCanada-based services from the end of December.
The company, which will release Q3 results on Friday, announced yesterday that rates forGround, Air, International, Freight and air freight transportation and delivery within and betweenthe US, Canada, and Puerto Rico will increase an average of 4.9 per cent from December 29, 2014.
Explaining the increase in a customer message, UPS commented that it will allow the company “ to further enhance our portfolio of solutions and improve service to you”. UPS highlighted thisyear’s expansion of early morning delivery options, worldwide express freight delivery and B2Cdelivery services as examples of this service improvement.
Last month FedEx announced identical rates rise for its three main transportation units fromJanuary 5, 2015. FedEx Express will increase shipping rates by an average of 4.9 per cent for USdomestic, US export and US import services. The US ground package units FedEx Ground and FedEx HomeDelivery will increase their shipping rates by the same amount, and trucking business FedEx Freightwill also increase shipping rates by an average of 4.9 per cent for shipments within the US, to andfrom Canada and Mexico, and within those two countries.
Meanwhile, both UPS and FedEx will begin applying dimensional weight pricing to allshipments using ground delivery from the end of the year onwards. So far dimensional weight pricinghas only been used for shipments weighing more than three pounds. The yield-boosting move is aresponse to the surge of large but relatively lightweight parcels driven by e-commerce, and meansthat the shipment price will take more account of the size of a parcel as well as its weight, andthus the amount of space that it uses.
