Shipping

Silicon Valley tech companies like to move fast and sometimes break things. Now they're trying to bring that high-speed innovation to the retail world and break the tradition of failed same-day delivery services. Five months after Google unveiled an experiment delivering everything from Target bed sheets to American Eagle blue jeans to parts of the San Francisco Bay area, the company is preparing to expand same-day delivery to more shoppers across the region. Google Shopping Express will add pressure to companies like eBay that are growing its own same-day delivery programs in what's become a fierce race between tech giants. 

With "likes" and "favorites" taking center stage in retail, trends like "retail hauling" (i.e., the YouTube version of calling a friend to brag about a recent shopping spree) are creating a market environment in which posting to Instagram, Facebook and other social sites is now a natural follow-up to making a purchase.

Google FedEx SmartPost or UPS SurePost and plenty of hits show up in the search results. Some reviews are positive, extolling benefits that include cost effectiveness and fewer surcharges over air/ground alternatives, end-to-end package visibility, free Saturday delivery, and more. However, your search results will include complaints ranging from transit times that were too lengthy to crushed/damaged packages. One thing is for sure: With the meteoric growth of e-commerce and consumers’ demand for free or low cost shipping, these services are here to stay.

Private-sector groups are growing increasingly worried that the Postal Service's board is going to consider a broad rate increase next month, a move they say would amount to an attack on some of the agency's best customers. Industries that heavily use the mail — e.g., magazines, catalog marketers and banks — say that a sharp hike in the postage rate would drag down their bottom line.

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe and Chief Marketing and Sales Officer Nagisa Manabe hosted a web conference call on Wednesday with reporters to discuss recent changes to Priority Mail and

eBay is aware of a problem impacting tracking numbers on packages sent via USPS that's causing consternation among buyers and sellers. Last week sellers began reporting that the tracking numbers the Postal Service issued on its shipments were showing delivery dates from last fall, a glitch in which the USPS or its shipping partners appear to be recycling tracking numbers.

Door-to-door service and Saturday mail delivery, long hallmarks of the U.S. Postal Service, are a step closer to being phased out. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday approved a measure that would end door-to-door delivery to 37 million residences and businesses and Saturday mail service to more than 150 million homes and businesses. Ending door-to-door delivery — which will force millions to get mail at curbside boxes or neighborhood cluster boxes by 2022 — would save up to $4.5 billion annually, said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

While many features and services start on the desktop and then move to mobile, eBay started its same-day delivery service on a mobile app and is now expanding it to the desktop. The eBay Now mobile app lets users in New York City, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., order items from brick-and-mortar chain stores such as Toys"R"Us and Macy's and receive them from an eBay courier to a specified location within the hour. eBay Now charges $5 per delivery (per store) with a $25 minimum order. eBay announced yesterday it was expanding eBay Now to the desktop.

eBay is expanding its same-day delivery service, eBay Now, which can be used to order items from brick-and-mortar retailers such as Urban Outfitters, Toys"R"Us, Macy's, Walgreens, Home Depot, Target, though not listings from its own marketplace. The service is currently available in California and New York.

With speedy shipping becoming a more competitive component of the e-commerce experience, REI created some happy campers in April with the top shipping performance in the STELLA Monthly Benchmarks sporting goods vertical. The retailer not only had the fastest average delivery speed, but scored high marks for package fit as well.