UPS' SurePost service has been renamed UPS Ground Saver, the parcel carrier announced on its website.
The home delivery offering caters to less urgent shipments by offering lower rates in exchange for slower shipping speeds versus other UPS services. It used to frequently lean on the U.S. Postal Service for the last leg of delivery, but UPS began keeping all SurePost volume in-house this year due to service and cost concerns.
Ground Saver is currently available for packages being picked up and delivered within the contiguous U.S., according to terms and conditions for the service that went into effect Monday. When the Postal Service partnership was active, SurePost could deliver to Alaska, Hawaiʻi, Puerto Rico and other locations beyond the contiguous U.S.
Another change in the terms and conditions is UPS' liability for loss or damage to packages, dropping from $100 per SurePost package to $20 per Ground Saver package, as noted by Shipware in a LinkedIn post.
"UPS Ground Saver service is an economy transportation service intended for the transportation of low value packages; therefore, Customer agrees that the limitation of liability set forth above is reasonable under the circumstances surrounding the transportation," per the terms and conditions.
Despite Ground Saver's low-cost positioning, UPS enacted a nearly 10% average rate increase on the service in January. EVP and CFO Brian Dykes acknowledged in a January earnings call that the price hikes could spur shippers to explore alternative delivery services.
“There are some customers that this might not work for, and we’ve taken that into account in our forecast,” Dykes said.
FedEx and the Postal Service both offer economy delivery services similar to UPS Ground Saver. However, customers disgruntled with the changes by UPS may struggle to break away from the carrier’s contracts featuring minimum volume and spending commitments, experts told Supply Chain Dive earlier this year.
