
Amazon’s holiday success and UPS’ holiday fail - manojkr
http://gigaom.com/2013/12/26/amazons-holiday-success-and-ups-holiday-fail-highlight-the-internet-economys-problems/
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potatolicious
Author is really reaching here. UPS is not the stodgy, antiquated fossil it's
being portrayed as. UPS has been quick to embrace tech and is really not that
far removed from Amazon.

This is the company that automatically distributes packages and generates
optimal routes for its trucks. It's the company that can automatically account
for changes in its transport graph and reroute. It's the company that does
fuel consumption analysis and incorporates it into its truck routing algo.

Author really doesn't give UPS enough credit. It may have failed some
deliveries yesterday, but crowing about how it's a stodgy beast and should
embrace logistical technology like Amazon is preaching to the choir.

~~~
toomuchtodo
No amount of data will allow perfect predictions. And the physical world
doesn't scale like AWS.

UPS oversubscribed their transport network, that's all. At some point, they
should've stopped accepting packages for Dec 24th delivery, just like Amazon
halted accepting new Prime members to maintain service for existing members.

~~~
craigkerstiens
The virtual world doesn't always scale for that matter either. Try getting a
new, in demand, instance type days or even weeks after release, you'll be
waiting in line for access to that virtual instance just as you would for a
new iPhone on release day.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Sort of. You're banging the hell out of my JSON API with gets? I'll just write
it out into S3 and serve from various S3 endpoints around the globe (or even
Cloudfront/Cloudflare, depending on how stale the data is permitted to get). I
need instances? I can get them from AWS, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, etc.

There is only so much road, aircraft, and people willing to work Christmas
Eve/Day out there. The physical world is inherently inelastic.

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lolwutf
Wow, WTF.

UPS missed a few packages in an insanely demanding crunch time, and you feel
the need to pen an accusatory piece illustrating them as a complete failure?

I ordered all of my Christmas shopping the Saturday evening before Christmas,
I got all but one thing, and I am, in fact, quite content with Amazon + UPS's
performance.

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omonra
I much more sympathize with UPS workers who got Christmas day off than some
shmuck who ordered his package late. Better plan next year.

There is a saying I like 'failure to plan on your part does not constitute an
emergency on mine'.

[Edited the saying, as I remembered it clearer)

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gagege
> "There are some obvious reasons for this, such as UPS’ decision to let its
> workers take Christmas day off."

Good for them. I respect that a lot more than them being able to deliver every
single package on Christmas Eve.

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ambiate
My monitor was supposed to be delivered on the 24th. It will not arrive until
the 27th. Huge let down by UPS, because I had to spend the holidays with my
family instead of staring at 144hz of beauty! </sarcasm>

I would imagine a spike in the amount of Amazon Prime memberships increased
this week due to console purchases. My first experience with Amazon Prime's
Instant Video automatically got me to shell out my credit card information for
movies on my child's Wii U. I have now completely cut the cord on my cable
broadcasting. $40/yr Amazon, $95.88/yr Netflix, $95.88/yr Hulu Plus, totaling
$231.76 vs my yearly cable television bill of $900/yr (with an extra
unmentioned $120 in random fees/taxes).

~~~
Crito
> _" My monitor was supposed to be delivered on the 24th. It will not arrive
> until the 27th. Huge let down by UPS, because I had to spend the holidays
> with my family instead of staring at 144hz of beauty! </sarcasm>"_

Try instead: _" My gift to my niece was suppose to be delivered by the 24th.
It will not arrive until the 27th, but her family flies back home on the
evening of the 26th. Now I have to wait for it to be delivered, reship it
myself at personal expense, and cannot watch her open it."_

Believe it or not, reliable package delivery during Christmas _actually is_ a
big deal to consumers...

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michaelt
Do many people really place orders to be delivered on christmas eve and
imagine they aren't running a risk the item won't arrive on time?

I mean, I've placed orders for next day delivery on christmas eve, but I'm a
realist. I know the postal system is busy at this time of year, and that my
item may be late or damaged.

~~~
madsushi
These are the same people that were going to the mall on the 24th (pre-Amazon)
and complaining that everything was out of stock.

We are nowhere near instantaneous transportation, so there will always be
logistical delays. Planning your holiday purchasing around those delays is
smart, assuming that 2-day shipping is always guaranteed and waiting until the
last moment is playing with fire.

~~~
reeses
I like the discounts and free shipping as web merchants try to boost their
numbers for the year. :-)

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_mikz
Just use common sense. Everybody with half of brain should know that delivery
of stuff takes time. I really disliked the author's attitude for "reality
check". One almost could get impression that people in tech have no idea what
is around them.

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carson
Anyone know how "thousands of packages" cited in the original article turned
into "millions of customers" in the gigaom piece?

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kirillzubovsky
I am amazed that people expect UPS to be able to scale like AWS. Nobody,
nobody can create a supply chain network that expands 100x for two weeks in a
year, w/out feeling a pinch. They should've set expectations and used the Uber
trick of having "Holiday Rates." This way, people would've ordered ahead. Sad
that media would write all sorts of crap, just to get eyeballs to the blog.

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tnorthcutt
_SUMMARY: The holiday’s were great for Amazon and lousy for UPS._

The holiday's what?

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scoot
Amazon / UPS didn't fail to deliver; OP failed to order in reasonable time.
Even though some of my (Prime) next-day deliveries took a couple of days to
arrive, they kept me informed, and everything arrived in plenty of time. Kudos
to both parties.

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smackfu
I ordered something from Williams Sonoma, who was promising that orders up
through Friday would be delivered by Christmas with standard shipping. What
was really ballsy was that it turned out they used UPS Ground, and just hoped
that using a regionally close warehouse would mean it would be delivered in
time. And it worked out, they shipped on Friday and it was delivered on
Tuesday. I guess the money they save on UPS Ground makes up for the occasional
packages that miss Christmas.

~~~
jmccree
Almost all ground shipping services are now "day-definite delivery" the same
way Air services are. UPS ground, FedEx ground, and USPS Priority Express
offer money back guarantees now, although large shippers may have different
contracts of course. Several times I've used the $4 next day shipping via
Amazon prime only to have it come UPS ground from a near by distribution
center.

~~~
smackfu
Wow, from looking around with that search term, UPS has actually had it for
residential ground since 2002. I guess I'm out of touch.

So, for the package in question, from where they shipped it, UPS Ground does
guarantee 2-day shipping. At half the price of UPS 2nd Day Air. So... pretty
smart.

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snake_plissken
Did Amazon let its warehouse employees take off Christmas day?

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nanidin
My biggest gripe to date about UPS: For years, they would deliver stuff to the
doorstep & sign it themselves as stupid stuff like "Dr. Door."

Well one delivery this backfires when the driver takes the package to a house
up the street and signs it as delivered. We check the tracking page, it says
delivered. Give it a day or two, package still hasn't shown up. Alert UPS and
the vendor. Eventually, the purchase was reimbursed. Maybe 2 weeks after that,
the neighbor wanders down with the missing package. (This is a guy that isn't
friendly towards my family because we do fireworks on the fourth of July, he
holds a grudge for the rest of the year as a result.)

Anyway, ever since UPS made the error & delivered to the wrong address, they
will no longer leave packages on our doorstep. We must be physically present
to sign for the package - we cannot sign the slip and have them leave it the
next day. Must be physically present. UPS comes at about 3pm. You can see how
convenient this is.

You can sit in the house and watch as the UPS man runs up to each house on the
street, drops a package, rings the bell, and runs off. But at our house, they
always have to stop and wait. The delivery people must hate it as much as we
do, since they have to fill out the paper slip if we're not around to answer
the door at a time when most people are at work (luckily, one of us works from
home now, but I can only imagine how bad the 3pm deliveries would be if that
weren't the case.)

Long story short, my address is flagged (only by UPS) and someone must be
physically present to receive the package. Which is a huge pain. Especially
when vendors don't give you an explicit choice in the matter as much as they
used to.

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ck2
Last week UPS delivered my Amazon package to someone else down the road, I had
no idea why my package was marked delivered when it never got here.

When I called to complain, the driver went back to the place and brought me
the box with everything opened, packaging removed and discarded and seriously
tried to deliver it to me. I had to argue to refuse it.

I've had bad UPS service before but that topped everything.

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xradionut
The article didn't mention the weather, which in DFW, totally fucked the
transportation system for almost a week in December. The delivery depots in
the area were backlogged and overwhelmed. I can imagine there may have been
other locales with similar weather created circumstances.

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eco
They definitely had some capacity issues near the end. On Christmas Eve I saw
a UPS driver in a U-Haul truck in my neighborhood then later saw a U-Haul
truck pulled up back to back with a UPS truck and they were handing off
packages in a strip mall parking lot. Personally, though, I was rather
impressed by the shipping carriers this year (UPS included). No late packages
and I even got some delivered early. The volume has to have skyrocketed in the
last 5 years so there is obviously going to be growing pains but shipping just
gets better and better every year for me so I'm a happy customer.

~~~
tanzam75
> _They definitely had some capacity issues near the end. On Christmas Eve I
> saw a UPS driver in a U-Haul truck in my neighborhood then later saw a
> U-Haul truck pulled up back to back with a UPS truck and they were handing
> off packages in a strip mall parking lot._

UPS always hires seasonal workers for the December rush. And since the workers
are seasonal, the delivery vehicles also have to be seasonal. They can't
afford to buy trucks that are parked for 11 out of 12 months. Lucky for them,
fewer people move houses during the holiday season, so they can borrow
U-Haul's spare capacity.

Even UPS's regular trucks have a driver and a helper during December. For the
other 11 months of the year, the trucks only have one employee in them.

You may also have noticed the postal service doing multiple deliveries on the
same day. It's easier to overlay the abnormal package volume on top of the
regular mail delivery, rather than to split the mail routes.

The holiday rush has _always_ been crazy like this. Nothing new in the
Internet era except for additional volume.

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huntedsnark
They got the bulk of their packages out AND let their works take christmas day
off? How many Amazon warehouse workers who were scheduled got Christmas off?

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mershad
I USPS 2-day Priority'd a gift on Dec. 17 that hasn't had tracking updated
since the 18th. It's most certainly not been delivered.

Pretty sure _all_ the physical mail carriers were clobbered this year and
we're just at the tip of the iceberg of understanding why they were
disorganized/unprepared/whatever.

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mikkelewis
I have a feeling Amazon is going to develop their own shipping solution. I bet
a fairly large percentage of boxes that UPS ships are from Amazon. UPS could
be turning into a bottleneck for them...

~~~
jw_
They are doing precisely this.

~~~
mikkelewis
Awesome! Are there any articles about this?

~~~
influx
I'd imagine that having Amazon Fresh trucks driving around a neighborhood with
a local fulfillment center could easily turn into their own solution. Combine
this with Amazon Locker and 20 years from now Amazon drone and good bye UPS.

~~~
postitnotecode
Amazon Lockers have been a boon for me living in apartments with hours that
don't match up to my schedule for their 'helpful' package signing service. I
recently noticed I can return packages through the lockers as well. If they
can saturate with enough lockers I'm not sure I'd ever actually need the
"final mile" of an actual delivery service.

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dm2
UPS just handed my package off to USPS who put a note in my box saying that I
could come to a Post Office, wait in a long line, then pick-up my package
myself. WTF is this?

~~~
holdenk
Ah the joys of "SmartPost". SmartPost is popular for residential deliveries in
a large part because it doesn't have the residential surcharge which other
options do. SmartPost shipments also generally don't have guaranteed delivery
dates so they may be more likely to experience delays during peak load time
(e.g. this month).

~~~
tanzam75
> _Ah the joys of "SmartPost"._

SurePost, since he said it originated at UPS.

SmartPost is the competing service from FedEx.

Notice that both of them have the word "Post" in it. Thus, not surprising that
they hand off the last mile to the postal service.

~~~
holdenk
Ah good catch, however the logic remains the same (they both avoid residential
delivery surcharges for the respective carrier).

