The lack of a service guarantee has real and significant consequences for shippers. They make more money when they can wait a day or two deliver without the threat of issuing a refund. As a result, in mid-2021, both carriers reinstated service guarantees, but only for their most expensive Overnight and Next Day/Express services.Īt the time of writing, UPS and FedEx still force shippers to accept delayed deliveries on services like Ground and two-day services without any monetary relief. Consumers no longer needed the herculean effort displayed by UPS and FedEx in those early months, and the carriers’ networks returned to a more normal workload. Over time, vaccines became readily available and required fewer time-sensitive deliveries. The continued suspension of service guarantees was a small price for consumers to pay for these lifesaving efforts.īut that was then. Only the nation’s two largest logistics companies, FedEx and UPS, could be entrusted with the massive logistics effort.įedEx and UPS performed admirably, perhaps even heroically, delivering the vaccines during their busiest time of the year without major disruptions to their domestic and international parcel delivery networks. Vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna received FDA approval but required ultra-cold storage during each leg of their journey from manufacturing to administration. In December 2020, the federal government’s plan to speed the development of COVID-19 vaccines, Operation Warp Speed, started paying dividends. It made sense to suspend delivery guarantees as essential workers risked their lives to deliver our toilet paper and Amazon purchases.
The first few months saw millions of new residential deliveries per day forced into networks without warning. The carriers originally suspended service guarantees at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they offer some financial protections for shippers and a channel through which they can hold their vendors accountable. For example, the carriers don’t address extra charges, such as fuel, through their refund policies, and the refunds typically come in the form of credits, not cash. For services with a guaranteed delivery date, like Ground, shippers are eligible for a refund if their shipment arrives a day or more late. FedEx’s Money Back Guarantee and UPS’s Guaranteed Service Refund state that for services with guaranteed delivery dates and times, which includes most Express/Air products, arriving more than a minute late entitles the shipper to a refund of all transportation charges.
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