FedEx Freight Direct heralds new options for returns

Earlier this week, FedEx Freight, the less-than-truckload (LTL) subsidiary of Memphis-based global freight transportation and logistics services provider FedEx, said it has expanded its FedEx Freight Direct e-commerce offering for big and bulky items.

FedEx Freight describes FedEx Freight Direct as an e-commerce service that handles the delivery of bulky items like furniture, televisions, and exercise equipment, among other items, from—or through—the door of residences or businesses. And it added that this service offers label-less returns, flexible pickup windows with proactive notifications, shipment visibility, and technology capabilities that connect the return to the to the original shipment.

The company said that FedEx Freight Direct provides customers with simplified pricing and three return service levels, including:

• Basic Pickup: Pickup from the ground-level front or back door, or from the garage; no appointment required and delivery confirmation via photo capture, where the delivery is documented by photo;
• Basic by Appointment Pickup: Pickup from the ground-level front or back door, or from the garage; with a two-hour appointment window and photo capture; and
• Standard Pickup: Pickup through-the-door from the first ground-level room in a home or business with a two-hour appointment window

What’s more, the company said that FedEx Freight Direct covers almost 100% of the U.S. population for Basic Pickup and Basic by Appointment Pickup, as well as 90% of the contiguous U.S. population for Standard Pickup.

Other key benefits of this service highlighted by FedEx include: investing in technology providing customers with greater shipment visibility; real-time estimates for scheduling and pickup status; flexible two-hour pickup windows; SMS text message or e-mail notifications for customers to opt into; optimized route design for drivers through technology to monitor distance between stops, appointment windows, driver availability, and traffic patterns.

“We wanted to simplify the process for our customers and their consumers,” said Bonnie Voldeng, Vice President FedEx Freight Direct, in a statement. “We’ve designed a returns solution, much like our delivery service levels, that simplifies the process for all parties involved, offers greater visibility, removes the hassle of printing a label, and provides flexible two-hour pick-up windows. These are all just examples of how FedEx Freight Direct is providing value and enhancing the overall customer experience.”

In a previous interview, Voldeng told LM that the FedEx Freight value proposition has always been about providing visibility for a shipment, from the beginning all the way through delivery.

“In this space, visibility is king,” she said. “Consumers want to know when a shipment is going to arrive, so it is truly about making sure they have access to those tracking numbers to track their shipments and that they are receiving their communications to really know it is coming. That is key, and having our transit times and visibility and then setting the consumers’ expectation of when we are going to arrive. We really are focused on continuing to meet the needs of our customers…expanding those parcel-like experiences to them and having technology similar to FedEx Express and FedEx Ground, using labels for shipping and then leveraging our vast network to ensure we are covering the population centers in the U.S.”

In January 2019, Bloomberg reported that FedEx took its initial steps with FedEx Freight Direct through the testing of a full-service residential delivery bulky product, a $9 billion market that has been traditionally handled by motor carriers, rather than couriers and integrators, as larger items tend to not fit well in couriers and integrators sorting operations. And the report added that the focus of this pilot program was on industrial goods in six major markets, with FedEx Freight moving large items and sectional sofa into a customer’s home and assembling them, too.

As previously reported, the entrance into the last-mile market by FedEx is not unique, in that many of its primary competitors have already taken the step, with some having a major foothold established.

These companies include XPO Logistics, Ryder System, and J.B. Hunt, among others. One thing XPO, J.B. Hunt, and Ryder each has in common in this space is that they have made acquisitions to gain immediate entrance into the last-mile logistics market, which has given them room to run and expand operations while becoming a market player and leverage the very active e-commerce market at the same time.