Airdate:  Thursday, December 17, 1998                  Good Morning Texas on WFAA-TV/Channel 8      

Why do you still do this to yourself? When you were in school you probably finished your homework right before the teacher began collecting the assignments. As an adult you end up counting down the final minutes of every April 15 sitting in long lines of traffic at the main post office.

And now with Christmas less than a week away you’re facing the most daunting challenge of all: Getting your holiday packages into the hands of friends and family on time, in one piece, and without going broke.

Procrastination can be expensive for consumers, but means big business for the companies you’re most likely to entrust to ship your precious cargo. Americans will send over 500,000 packages by either United Parcel Service (UPS), Federal Express (FedEx) or the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) between Thanksgiving and New Years Eve, and the great majority of them will even get there on time. But there’s a premium price to pay as the big day approaches.

"I use FedEx’s new Three Day Service because it’s affordable, and with the multiple drop-off locations, I never have to stand in line," says Stephanie Seltzer, owner of In Any Event, a Dallas-based company that creates and ships customized gift baskets all over the country for consumers and businesses. "I used to use UPS, but could never get through to a live customer service rep on the phone. With FedEx I can trace my shipment anytime I want over the Internet, and it’s free!"

Shipping Goes Hi-Tech

For the Internet-friendly consumer facing the last-minute shipping challenge, access to the Internet will make this task much easier. In fact, all of the cost computations for this story were generated directly from each company’s website. The winner of the high tech derby, at least this holiday season, is clearly FedEx.

All three of their websites give consumers the opportunity to price the cost of shipping their packages over the Internet, allowing direct price and delivery time comparison. Both UPS and FedEx let consumers use the specific airbill/parcel number to track their shipments to their final destination; if you want an e-mail confirmation sent to you upon delivery, UPS is the only one that offers this service for an additional 75 cents per parcel. Consumers can follow any UPS or FedEx shipment through their system for free on their websites; the USPS offer this service only for Express (Overnight) Service. According to a recent article in Barron’s, a high percentage of companies utilize FedEx because of the ease in tapping in to the company’s website to locate the latest shipping information.

Only FedEx allows consumers to handle all phases of a shipping transaction on-line and unlike UPS, it’s not necessary to have an account already established. Anyone with a major credit card can initiate a shipment from their website, from filling out and printing an airbill to scheduling a pick-up, the whole process takes less than 5-8 minutes from start-to-finish. Neither UPS or USPS have these capabilities currently available and as a result, consumers are forced to visit their local post office or a UPS-authorized shipping center in advance to obtain the proper shipping paperwork. However, convenience has a price.

How Much Does It Cost?

In order to get an apples-to-apples comparison, cost estimates for shipping a 10-pound box from Dallas-Fort Worth to four different destinations were generated from each company’s website. Then three different classes of shipping were estimated, and the clear winner in the price category is...it depends.

Overnight shipments scheduled for an afternoon delivery the following afternoon was the only category that allowed true comparisons across the board. The U.S. Postal Service was the clear winner, beating the other two companies by a substantial margin. The USPS delivered the best savings, by an average margin of $7.78 for three out of the four destinations. UPS was the big inner for overnight shipping to Houston, coming in an average of $6.55 cheaper than the competition. Conclusion? For overnight shipments to either rural Texas destinations or out of state, USPS is probably going to be your best value, with an enormous advantage for those consumers that really like to play it close to the edge: They’re the only carrier that will deliver on Christmas Day (to most metropolitan areas) at no extra charge. Both FedEx and UPS will deliver on Christmas...but plan on spending a minimum of $210 or more in service charges.

Two-day delivery options became much more difficult to compare, since only UPS and FedEx have true two-day delivery service. The USPS heavily advertises its "Priority Mail" service as "getting there in 2-3 days, in most cases" but savvy shippers know otherwise. There are no guarantees that the parcel will get to its destination within this span of time, and no accountability on the part of the USPS if it doesn’t. Only FedEx and UPS allow customers to track their non-express/overnight shipments all the way to their respective destinations. With only 50 cents price difference between them, it looks like a coin toss, except for one thing: It pays to read the fine print. While FedEx offers a money-back guarantee if it fails to deliver your packages on time, UPS waives their on-time, money-back guarantee for shipments scheduled to be delivered between December 12 and December 25.

Conclusion? If your shipment’s absolutely, positively gotta be there within two days, it’s no contest: FedEx.

Analyzing the three-day delivery options presents the same heads-up comparison dilemma, since only FedEx’s Three-Day Express Saver and UPS’ Three Day Select are a true three day services. The USPS heavily promotes their 2-3 Day Priority Mail service, but consumers need to remember that there are no guarantees, especially during the heaviest shipping period of the year. Because of their accountability (again, thanks to their technology edge), FedEx and UPS sprint ahead of the USPS in this category. But when comparing pricing between the two companies, the results are misleading. Even though our Texas shipments cost an average of $4.72 less (and the out of state shipments cost $7.70 less) to ship via UPS, only FedEx offers a money-back guarantee if it fails to deliver your packages on time. Again, UPS waives their guarantee for shipments scheduled to be delivered between December 12 and December 25. Conclusion? Put your money where your mouth is: FedEx wins.

Convenience Has A Price

Each company has its strong points; the USPS will come to your home or office to pick up as many boxes as you’ve got to ship for only $4.25 per shipment (but you’ve got to have the postage affixed in advance), whereas FedEx nicks consumers with a $3 service charge per box, but will gladly bill your credit card for the final shipping charges. UPS won’t come by to pick up a shipment unless you already have an established account, but tries to make itself as accessible as possible in the Dallas-Fort Worth area by virtue of contracts with hundreds of Authorized Shipping Outlets (known as ASOs).

With only a handful of UPS-run Customer Counters in the Metroplex, these ASOs are fully-authorized agents of UPS, contracted in most cases to accept and receive shipments on their behalf. They’re practically everywhere under a variety of names: Mailboxes, Etc. is probably the best known; other players in this arena include places like Eagle Postal Centers, Pack ‘N Post, Post It Plus, Parcel Plus and Pack N Mail.

Instead of trying to locate one of the few UPS owned-and-operated Customer Counters, many consumers take advantage of the convenience of getting their gifts packed and shipped around the corner at a neighborhood postal-shipping centers. A popular franchise business opportunity, hundreds of these entrepreneur-run mailing centers have popped up all over North Texas. But few consumers realize the premium they’re paying for the sake of convenience.

In some areas there’s a long waiting list to obtain a postal mail box address at the local post office and the neighborhood mailing center is a perfect, albeit more expensive alternative. Offering more service and shorter lines, these businesses rent mail boxes, prepare parcels for shipping, sell office supplies, notarize documents and even accept shipments and faxes on behalf of boxholders. Unlike the Post Office, they’ll call a customer and let them know if they have a package waiting, or field a telephone request and check a mailbox to see if it’s worthwhile for them to stop by. Convenience and service for a price.

But the price of convenience skyrockets when consumers choose to originate their shipments from one of these privately-owned postal centers. In most cases, each mailing center independently decides how high they mark-up the various shipping services they represent. For example, if you decided to ship our 10-pound package from DFW to Houston using UPS’ Next Day service and originated the shipment from a UPS owned-and-operated Customer Counter, it would cost $22.25. But the same shipment sent from a private mailing center (with pricing believed to be representative of similar businesses in the DFW area) costs $45.33...a whopping 103% mark-up!

Shipping through a UPS facility might not be as convenient and might justify your willingness to pay this type of premium, but what about FedEx or the USPS? Again, using the DFW to Houston Next Day delivery scenario, the price differentials are stunning. With dozens of extremely-accessible, manned drop off points in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, originating this shipment directly through a FedEx-operated facility would cost $24.25. But the same shipment, originated from the same private mailing center would leave you $20.36 poorer...their 83% mark-up resulting in a final shipping cost of $44.61.

And these privately-owned shipping centers aren’t shy about marking-up postage on shipments sent via the USPS, either. They bumped up the price on the same USPS Next Day shipment, too. Shipping it directly from any DFW-area post office to Houston would cost $29.80. Their price? $54.24, an 82% premium.

Let’s not forget that these private mailing centers are just that. They’re privately owned, and they’re entitled to earn a profit. Their number one commodity they have to sell consumers is convenience and service. And while it’s much more convenient and perhaps easier to cost-justify originating a UPS shipment from one of these centers, you’ll pocket a substantial savings by originating those FedEx and USPS shipments directly.

Knock, Knock

Utilizing a private mailing center as your permanent mailing address 365-days a year is not only convenient, but smart. Privacy advocates have sung the praises of using these facilities which allow consumers to divert all mail and packages from their homes addresses for a long time. Remember, the USPS is still the only service which will ship to a post office box--everyone else requires a street address.

This is an important consideration when sending your last minute shipments. It doesn’t make sense to pay a premium to get your packages to their destination if nobody’s home to accept them. The end result? Packages end up sitting in the local warehouse of the shipping company, waiting for the recipient to pick them up after the holiday.

Delivery personnel will usually leave a note on the front door or in the mailbox of the absent recipient, and in some cases leave the package on the front porch or with a neighbor. But with increasing concerns about theft, they’ll usually leave a note telling you when they’ll try again or where you can pick up your package. Think ahead about the person you’re sending a shipment to; if it’s someone that works all day and nobody is at their house to receive a your package, see if it’s possible to ship it to their office or workplace. If that’s not an option, ask them if they have a friend or neighbor that’s at home and would be willing to accept a shipment for you. If so, be sure to clearly mark the shipment with the words "In Care Of..." The last thing you want are your gifts being mistakenly opened by strangers.

Getting There In One Piece

In their current December issue, Consumer Reports analyzed all three companies by shipping out 838 parcels and charting their courses during the 1997 holiday shipping season. They even packed each parcel with a special "shock sensor" that upon examination at their destination, would reveal if that particular box had sustained any shocks of a significant level.

According to their study, the USPS proved the most gentle of the three. At the other end of the scale, at least a third of the parcels shipped using FedEx’s Two-Day service indicated they had sustained some significant shocks, two to four times the rate of the other services.

Which brings us to the next category. If you pack your shipment properly, you’ll greatly reduce the chance of breakage during transit. Spend a few dollars at your local office supply store on bubble wrap or styrofoam peanuts; try to use new corrugated boxes, since used ones tend to lose their strength every time they’re put through the stresses of shipping.

Once again, a little preparation will save you in the long run. Prices for shipping supplies are almost always substantially lower at the office supply superstores than at private mailing centers and especially the post office.

And if you’re not willing to spend a few bucks to properly pack your parcels, you’d better consider insuring your shipment if there’s anything that could be broken in transit. UPS and FedEx have a maximum liability limit of $100 per piece shipped, with additional coverage available for a nominal fee. Unless you’re shipping with the USPS using their Express Mail service (which includes coverage up to $500), there’s no liability in the event of loss, so be sure to at least consider insuring the package for the replacement cost of the contents.

We Guarantee It!

Only the USPS and FedEx offer money-back guarantees for their Express/Next Day service. And only FedEx stands behind all three classes of service (Next Day, Two Day and Three Day) with a money back guarantee. In most cases the consumer who initiated the shipment is responsible for

filing the refund paperwork within 15-30 days of shipment (varies with the company and class of service); make sure the party receiving the package has the driver/delivery person document the exact time and date of delivery. Obviously if the receiving party is not home to accept your shipment, the company cannot be held responsible for missing delivery deadlines.

No matter which service you choose, count your blessings! Pound for pound and mile for mile, the United States is by far the most affordable nation on the planet when it comes to utilizing premium shipping services that really do deliver your precious packages intact and on time.

UPS, United Parcel Service, FedEx, Federal Express, USPS, United States Postal Service, Mailboxes, Etc., Eagle Postal Centers, Pack ‘N Post, Post It Plus, Parcel Plus and Pack N Mail are all registered trademarks by their respective companies.