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FedEx and United Parcel Service are escalating their rivalry, competing for parcel volume from some of their smallest customers ahead of a challenging holiday season, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The shorter holiday season—with Thanksgiving being later this year than last—is helping pressure shippers as is the expected decline of holiday-season packages, which peaked in 2021 during the pandemic.
Both UPS and FedEx began offering discounts to larger customers last year, and have now shifted to aggressively chasing smaller customers, giving them breaks that are typically reserved for bulk shippers.
Until recently, it was unheard of for shippers with less than $500,000 in annual shipping expenses to get a break on fuel surcharges, for example, says Robert Persuit, an executive at ShipMatrix, a shipping consulting firm. Now, he said, “no customer is too small to be considered for discounts.”
