Yesterday we reported that Amazon may be looking into a new service that would enlist normal people — i.e., not FedEx or UPS employees — to help deliver some of its packages. You might think that would be cause for concern among professional parcel delivery services, but FedEx doesn’t seem to be worried.
FedEx released its latest earnings report yesterday, and on the accompanying conference call company vice president Mike Glenn took a moment to speak about its more recent competitors, USA Today reports. Glenn didn’t mention specific companies by name, but it’s fairly easy to guess who he’s talking about.
“Research has indicated time and time again that a uniformed person with proper identification showing up at your doorstep is an important issue for customers,” Glenn said. “Consistency of customer experience is very critical in that regard. So when you talk about the challenges of building a network, the scale, the input costs, the technology issues and the customer experience required to deliver what customers expect of companies like FedEx and our primary competitors, it’s a pretty tall hill to climb.”
Little concrete information is known about the possible upcoming “On My Way” service from Amazon, but for some time now Uber has been delivering food, and more recently has been looking into further expanding its services. The company’s UberEATS service only delivers curbside, so drivers in that case aren’t showing up at the customer’s doorstep, but it’s clear that these types of deliveries are what Glenn is talking about.
Glenn is certainly in a position to know what he’s talking about when it comes to the scale required to run a successful delivery service. He has been with FedEx since 1998, and it’s clear that this has given him no small amount of confidence, as he wrapped up his thoughts on on the competition: “So obviously we continue to monitor these situations and opportunities that pop up from time to time. But we feel pretty comfortable in terms of our strategy going forward and our ability to serve the e-commerce market and our customers.”
