Dive Brief:
- Pitney Bowes has expanded its regional delivery services to more than 20 new cities in the Southeast and Southwest, the company announced last week.
- Regional delivery provides a way for shippers to achieve cost-effective, one-to-three day delivery in select ZIP codes if the origin and destination are in the same region, according to the company. The expansion allows brands and retailers to reach 100 million more consumers.
- Pitney Bowes debuted its regional delivery services last year, serving both the Northeast region for origins near New York and Boston and the Northern and Southern California regions for origins near Los Angeles and San Francisco.
New metro areas covered by Pitney Bowes' regional delivery services
| Region | Origin | Highlighted destinations |
|---|---|---|
| Southeast | Orlando, Florida, and Atlanta areas | Alabama: Birmingham, Huntsville Florida: Miami, Orlando, Tampa Georgia: Atlanta, Savannah Mississippi: Jackson North Carolina: Charlotte, Raleigh South Carolina: Greenville Tennessee: Nashville |
| Southwest | Dallas area | Arkansas: Little Rock Louisiana: Baton Rouge, New Orleans New Mexico: Albuquerque Oklahoma: Oklahoma City, Tulsa Texas: Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, El Paso, Houston, San Antonio |
Source: Pitney Bowes
Dive Insight:
Regional delivery services helped Pitney Bowes grow its global e-commerce volume by 22% YoY in Q1. The company expects the offering to be an even larger driver of volume growth in the future, said Gregg Zegras, EVP and president of Global Ecommerce at Pitney Bowes.
Fueling this increase is the fact that several Pitney Bowes clients have recently deployed a regionalized inventory model, similar to Amazon's shift from a national to regional fulfillment network, Vijay Ramachandran, Pitney Bowes’ vice president of go-to-market enablement and experience, said in an interview. This means products don't have to travel as far to reach end customers.
"If a shipper is bringing packages into that region, we can deliver in a one-to-three day window," Ramachandran said.
High-volume domestic shippers and businesses using 3PL partners to regionalize their inventory are among the customers that can particularly benefit from regional delivery services, Ramachandran said.
"What we were able to do in building out this regional offering is really fine tune the exact drop off and pickup schedules throughout the chain of events from a merchant or retailers' warehouse dock, all the way through the consumers doorstep," Ramachandran said.
Going forward, Ramachandran sees two ways Pitney Bowes can expand its regional delivery services further. The company can add incremental ZIP code coverage in current regions, and it can also expand into the Midwest.
"The Midwest is definitely the next in our sights, because with the Chicagoland area all the way up through Minneapolis, there are significant population corridors where we think we can deliver at a very competitive speed and price," Ramachandran said.
