UPS delivers expanded e-commerce options

The e-commerce experience will be easier for retailers to execute and more enjoyable for shoppers this holiday season thanks to a dramatic expansion of a flexible fulfillment service UPS introduced last year.

UPS plans to expand its UPSAccess Point service to 2,400 locations in 100 U.S. cities by December of this year bringing the total number of domestic locations to 8,000. The rapid expansion of a service first introduced last July is a major benefit to retailers because it offers shoppers increased fulfillment options and addresses what UPS has identified as a major e-commerce deficiency.

“We listened to consumers who said they were not buying online because they didn’t have a secure delivery location,” said Alan Gershenhorn, UPS executive vice president and chief commercial officer. “By providing local options, we are improving the e-commerce delivery experience, which helps retailers and UPS.”

One way it helps retailers is UPS technology gives retailers the ability to offer consumers the option to ship their orders directly to a UPS Access Point location during checkout. The increased flexibility afforded by an expanded network of conveniently located pick up and drop off locations means shoppers who aren’t home when UPS attempts to make delivery can receive their products without rescheduling a delivery date. For example, when a UPS driver can’t make a delivery at a consumer’s residence, a note is left indicating when and where the package will be available for pickup at a UPS Access Point location.

To help determine optimal locations for the new Access Points, UPS mined its delivery data to glean insights into consumers’ package acceptance behavior.

“We looked for cluster of consumers who were having a difficult time receiving their packages on the first delivery attempt,” said Stephanie Callaway, UPS’ vice president of new product development.

Initially, those consumer clusters were in Boston, Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco when the service launched last year. The locations were neighborhood type business such as convenience and grocery stores, dry cleaners and delis that had extended evening and weekend hours and desired the additional traffic that came with being an Access Point.

Another key insight that led to the expansion decision related to input from the 16 million members of the UPS My Choice program that provides package recipients with enhanced tracking and re-routing capabilities. Research by UPS showed that the number of people who desired alternative delivery locations increased to 33% from 26% last year.

The recent expansion follows a major move by UPS earlier this year that extended the UPS Access Point network to all 4,400 domestic UPS Store locations. That move gave the UPS Access Point network 5,600 locations. With the addition of another 2,400 independent locations in the coming months UPS expects to hit the 8,000 location domestic target by year end. Those 8,000 locations are part of a global network expected to number 22,000 locations by year end, including 12,000 locations in Europe where the service was first established.

A total of 100 cities will gain new independent locations in the coming months including Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis and Tampa.