UPS Around The World
Online shopping, shipping, returns, and more will be covered on this here podcast! Millions of people around the world buy from online retailers such as Amazon, Temu, Shein, etc. Our expert Mario Cepero who works with UPS will be educating us on just how just much shipping his carrier really does. According to our expert while shipping has always been around, just recently did it start to gain traction because of COVID. Ever since online shopping grew, UPS not only shipped out these packages, but they were even involved in the return process. Stay tuned to find out just how exactly UPS manages with their Mount Fuji of packages!
The following text is the transcript of this podcast.
Maria P.
Hello. Hello. My name is Maria Perez, and the topic of this podcast is going to be about U.P.S. shipping worldwide and what type of services they offer. Amongst other things, I’m going to be here today with my expert on shipping Mario Cepero.
Mario C.
Thanks for inviting me, Maria. Here I am. After a long day’s work, we’re talking around 12 hours. But hey, that’s just normal for me.
Maria P.
I really do appreciate the time that you took in to come to this podcast, Mario. So I’m sorry that work was hard, but, you know, shipping is crazy now in days, actually. Tell me a little bit about what’s it like working with UPS?
Mario C.
Well, I’ve been working for UPS for around eight years now, and there’s a lot to talk about. You know, it’s mostly boxes and shipping, but you already knew that.
Maria P.
On Average, how much would you say a consumer spends on shipping with UPS on average?
Mario C.
How much a consumer spends? Well, my center, you’re looking around 32,000. I would say this is on a monthly basis.
Maria P.
Interesting. How many packages are you guys looking at when it comes to delivering on an average day?
Mario C.
On average we send out close to about 1200 packages. That’s daily just from my center.
Maria P.
A thousand packages. Wow. That’s a lot to handle.
Mario C.
Normally, our delivering in an average day as well. Okay. Well, different centers have variable amounts of drivers, but U.P.S. itself employs, I think, over 300,000 drivers.
Mario C.
And that’s all around the world, basically. But you’re talking, what, 250 packages that a truck can hold to 52 to 300 or so. And that’s the stuff, those trucks. So that’s how many basically you’re looking at one driver delivery. And then just to specify, all your packages are valued up to $100. Anything more than that, you basically have to put insurance on it.
Mario C.
But that’s how much U.P.S. is willing to pay out for the standard package.
Maria P.
You process shipments for people around the world, but do you also do it for companies?
Mario C.
So UPS has at this point hundreds of contracts with different companies. Most of them you probably already know, AT&T, Comcast.
Mario C.
Elevance. Amazon. Happy returns, Shane. This party goes on. It’s infuriating. Originally, we already had large shipments that we make. But now with Amazon and all these other online retailers, you’re looking at so much more work a lot. I mean, let’s talk Amazon is a big company, as you all know. You probably order from there to begin with. But for us, when you’re looking at around more than half of what we do now, our online retailers.
Maria P.
Man, it must be so stressful working with so many different contracts.
Maria P.
And hey, how exactly do these contracts even come up? Do you guys look for it? Like, what happens?
Mario C.
So the company itself has employees that go out of their way to search and get in touch with certain companies to see if they’re willing to come up with a plan with us so that they can make these shipments happen.
Mario C.
This means that when they come to us, they are able to make their labels electronically and it will be ready to go. All they need to do is not their label, put it on their box and drop it off at their newest ups location or even have it picked up by us. We have a service for that as well.
Maria P.
And how long has this been going on for the processing terms for these companies?
Mario C.
This has been going on for years, maybe ten or so already. Even more just depends on the company itself now. So we were talking about Amazon earlier and talking about that. That’s something that blew up maybe back I think in like 2014 is when it started getting big and definitely I can tell you that things changed.
Maria P.
I see. What about Shein and Temu? I heard that a lot of people process ups returns towards them. Has that been going on for while or is that recent?
Mario C.
Those companies are honestly still we said they’re much newer, but they are growing and they’ll probably rival the amount that we’re due for all these other third parties.
Maria P.
And what about Comcast?
Mario C.
Comcast? Well, Comcast has its own set of rules, just like AT&T. These companies handle media, so to speak, or Internet. Now, here at the UPS store, we have very specific standards that we have to use when sending those packages out. They’ll be brought into our store. We have to ship them in a certain way within a certain container, and they have to be handled in a certain fragile way.
Mario C.
Otherwise they just won’t get there. And if they don’t arrive in the correct way, we could be liable to lose our contract for that company. That’s something no shipping center wants to happen to them, because at that point they’re using a majority of their customers. That is true. It is a lot for Comcast that they were just to lose it all.
Maria P.
That’s an interesting process. Do any of the other companies that you are affiliated with have a similar process or something along those lines? Is this normal for the companies?
Mario C.
They all have some sort of standard we have to abide to. And this could also cost us money when these shipments are sent in favor of these companies. If they don’t arrive in the correct way, the shipping center gets billed a certain amount back to see like a chargeback for the difference or however it was done incorrectly.
Maria P.
I see. Wow. That’s really interesting. What percentage of your shipments would you say are based on these retailers that we’ve just talked about?
Mario C.
This depends a lot on the shipping center. It might very slightly or a lot. Now, my center itself makes let’s say, 94,000 a month. So we can say that a third of that is just regular shipments, just your family members coming in to send whatever they need to send to wherever it is or anywhere around the world.
Mario C.
But then the retailers you’re looking at around I see another another third. And even more than that, at this point.
Maria P.
More than that. Dang.
Mario C.
Yes, Maria. more than that. The other part of what the shipping center makes is miscellaneous services that U.P.S. offers that a lot of people might not be aware of.
Maria P.
How would you say the number of online shoppers has impacted your store?
Maria P.
And also, what were the numbers like before all these online retailers became more common?
Mario C.
Wow. I mean, honestly, should we name this to our center? Never ends. Okay. Online shopping has caused us to have a never ending wave of customers numbers we haven’t seen before. We’re talking about hundreds of customers. The lines for our centers was visible outside the door.
Mario C.
So obviously, this caused a lot of stress for a lot of people involved. But with COVID happening.
Maria P.
Oh, I see. So the reason for such high volume now is because of COVID. Could you tell me a little bit more about that?
Mario C.
Deliveries and shipments started becoming more common for everyday items. Everything. Mm hmm. Talking about what? I mean, hygiene at most, I would like to say.
Mario C.
But, you know, we got groceries, hygiene, cosmetics, clothes. Yeah, people were buying tons of it and more and adding online. So I would say online deliveries must have gone up 40% at least. And you know what? Online pickup as well. So you didn’t notice UPS has a service where they will go to your house and they will pick of the item for you.
Mario C.
This helps you avoid going to the store, making that line and then having to drop off the package. So it’s COVID was happening. People wanted to keep their distance. This way, this allowed people to stay indoors. You know, it makes it efficient, You know, to to was efficient as well. Now, if people did not want to leave their houses, you know, supply lines were being delayed or outright stopped altogether.
Mario C.
The prices, they skyrocketed during and after the pandemic. It hasn’t gone back down, to be honest. I mean, our services alone have gone up easily 3% or more in the last few years. So I don’t know if you bought anything previous to COVID or not.
Maria P.
Oh, no. Yeah. I remember things in COVID being- like it went up for sure.
Mario C.
I know myself, I used to. Although I work in UPS, I used to order things from FedEx back in the day. And I’d compare our prices to that. And now and I was paying maybe $20 for next day, ground shipments for it to be delivered. Well, the next day, that was 40 bucks. Right now, it’s easily $50. Yeah, for sure.
Maria P.
Thank you, Mario, so much for joining me in this podcast and teaching me and the viewers of this about shipments.
Mario C.
Thanks for inviting. I appreciate being here and I hope everything I heard here will help you get a better understanding of what it is that we do are UPS and how shipments are made out across the world.
Mario C.
I hope we’ll be able to do this again sometime.
Maria P.
I hope so too Mario, thank you so much for the insight and the data. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Mario C.
Thanks Maria, you have a good night.
