Shipping business drops

NEW YORK (AP) — When Wall Street collapsed, the paper stopped. Memos, invoices and order forms were left unsent.

At package delivery behemoths FedEx and UPS, last fall’s meltdown and the worst recession in a generation has meant a sharp drop-off in the number of documents and packages sent overnight. And it’s not just the delivery companies’ biggest customers. Small businesses and consumers are opting for slower shipments to save money. In doing so, they’re embracing an often- forgotten virtue — patience.

As with so many things in this new era of frugality, it isn’t clear if people will remain practical after the economy recovers. For now, though, the desire to save a buck is leaving its stamp on the country’s expansive delivery network.

At FedEx, the loss of millions in overnight documents and packages helped drag sales at the company’s express unit down 25 percent to $4.8 billion in the fiscal fourth-quarter that ended in May. But at FedEx’s unit where the slower packages and documents move mostly by truck rather than air, revenue fell just one percent to $1.7 billion.

The average number of packages carried by UPS per day in the U.S. dropped almost 5 percent to 12.5 million from April to June compared with the same period last year. The average amount it collected from each of those packages dropped 8 percent to an average of $8.51, as packages got lighter and moved slower.

The U.S. Postal Service has seen a big drop in the amount of mail and packages being sent overall. But the Postal Service is gaining market share when it comes to the package market, said Gary Reblin, vice president of expedited shipping. The Postal Service’s flat rate boxes allow people to stuff as much as they can into boxes for one price, and customers also are opting for even cheaper — and slower —methods of ground shipping.