>>> starting today, it will cost you a penny more to put a letter in the mail. the price of a first class stamp now 45 cents. the increase expected to generate more than $800 million a year for the struggling u.s. postal service .
>>> much of the pain at the post office is due to more and more people using e-mail and other ways of communicating. it is also because of fierce competition from the folks at fedex and u.p.s., which deliver nearly 6.5 billion packages a year. cnbc's brian shactman went behind the scenes at both shipping giants to see exactly how they do it.
>> reporter: fedex , it is not just a company, it's a verb.
>> you aren't fedexing those bad boys ?
>> reporter: and how they go from this to this is nothing short of remarkable. understanding how you fedex and u.p.s. deliver a combined 25 million packages a day almost all of them on time begins at an airport. for fedex , it is the 800 acre suber hub in memphis. u.p.s.' megacomplex is in louisville, tennessee. both are a two-hour flight for most of the continental united states and can reach well beyond. it is after midnight and i'm inside a boeing 757 that just came to guadalajara, mexico, bringing all the cans out to go into the whirlpool for sorting. routing packages from one plane to another at break neck speed with almost no human hands. u.p.s. can sort up to 416,000 packages an hour. and in a night, a million. during a peak season like christmas, 1.6 million packages. getting them to the right place on time is so important in this internet retailing revolution that businesses like zappos and pro flowers are popping up next to other companies. if an order comes in and it is too late to fulfill it, that's what this is for.
>> really the pro flowers facility here in memphis is next to the fedex hub and it is the safety net for all of our orders for fulfillment the next day.
>> reporter: despite all the innovation, from 155 miles of conveyor belts at u.p.s. to finger scanners at fedex , two recent embarrassing videos show that delivery is the most important step. for fedex it was a driver carelessly tossing a box over a fence. for u.p.s., an obscene gesture at a security camera . the public backlash proving at the end of the day , delivering packages still requires the proper human touch . brian
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46094101/
groupon ipo groupon ipo breeders cup 2011 gwar gwar san diego weather tropic thunder
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.