UPS has teamed with Internet payment service PayPal to completely integrate the online payment process with digital shipping tools. “PayPal Shipping With UPS” allows shipping functions to be completed by buyer or seller within PayPal’s Web site. The result is a fulfillment process that is more accurate and efficient for both buyers and sellers.
Read MoreUnited Parcel Service (UPS) expects to maintain its robust growth momentum despite the ongoing dispute on express mail with the State Post Bureau.
“You can’t be pessimistic about China,” said K M Liu, senior vice-president of Greater China for UPS in an interview.
Industry analysts predict that China will be the fastest growing airfreight market in the world.
Air express and heavy freight carriers have yet to show any sustainable signs of a recovery, according to one Wall Street report.
Air volumes for United Parcel Service were down approximately 5% in May, compared with the same month in 2001, according to preliminary data from the Morgan Stanley Air Express Demand Index.
While some of that decline may reflect traffic diversions due to uncertainty over United Parcel Service’s prospects for reaching a settlement with the Teamsters before the current contract expires on July 31, Jim Valentine, a Morgan Stanley analyst, said anecdotal evidence suggests industry-wide volumes weren’t much better in May and continue to lag into the month of June.
Russian market of express deliveries is not big yet, but is developing rapidly. According to some express transporters, in 2001 their turnover in Russia grew by 30-40%. They explain their success primarily by revival of Russian business, because large companies use services of express delivery most often. It will be possible to improve quality of express delivery in Russia to the level of European countries only when the customs legislation and transport infrastructure of the country correspond to the same level.
Until recently services of express delivery were not in very big demand in Russia. All players of the Russian express delivery market are more or less unanimous in estimates of its volume. According to them, exports amount to $60-80 million a year and imports amount to approximately twice as much. Delivery of goods inside of Russia also earns up to one-fourth of all incomes. Thus, it is possible to estimate the Russian market roughly at $250-300 million, whereas the world turnover of the largest express transporters is counted in tens of billions of dollars a year.
Europe’s leading post offices head a £10m ( t10.6m) creditors’ list after the collapse in March of wholesaler and lettershop services provider Mail Brokers International.
And there may be more pain to come after holding company MBI Logistics followed Mail Brokers into liquidation last month.
Royal Mail, Parcelforce, Deutsche Post, La Poste, Swisspost and UPS are all owed six-figure sums. But a former MBI member of staff – one of 60 who received no salary or severance pay last month – said it was the smaller creditors he felt sorry for.
Creditors are pressuring the UK DTI to investigate MBI’s directors, accusing them of trading while knowingly insolvent.
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