DC Velocity - November 2011

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newsworthy

short takes

C.H. Robinson has acquired melon marketing specialist Timco Worldwide Inc. … Sealed Air Corp. has acquired Diversey Holdings Inc., a solutions provider to the global cleaning and sanitation market. … Toyota Material Handling USA Inc. (TMHU) has acquired the Industrial Equipment Division of Toyota Canada Inc. … Forklift manufacturer Crown Equipment Corp. has built its 500th forklift to be operated with fuel cells. In addition, the company recently showcased its successful behav-ior-based approach to safety at the Association for Manufacturing Excellence’s national convention in Dallas. … Railinc has announced an upgrade to the Early Warning/Maintenance Advisory system that enhances rail industry communication about rail equipment conditions. … The Raymond Corp. has launched a new Raymond Parts website www.raymondparts.com—that features more than 3 million parts and a navigation structure that enables searching by part number and type. … Supply chain software developer Invata has released two new videos in its series of interviews with noted supply chain industry experts. In one, DC VELOCITY Senior Editor Mark Solomon talks about key transportation challenges faced by supply chain managers. In the other, Ricki Ingalls of Diamond Head Associates reveals how network modeling can optimize inventory, lower costs, and boost revenue. … Total Quality Logistics (TQL), a third-party logistics firm, has relocated its Chicago office to the West Loop of Chicago.

New parcel
consolidation service
launched

A Seattle-based company has joined the U.S. small-parcel fray by launching a service it says will, for the first time, enable small to mid-sized shippers to access low parcel rates that had previously been available only to large-scale users.

The company, called EquaShip, serves as the shipper’s main point of contact and handles all billing, customer service, and IT issues. EquaShip doesn’t operate vehicles or warehouses. Instead, it relies on its transport partner, Blue Package Delivery LLC, to provide parcel pickup as well as the line-haul to a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) facility. The packages are then introduced into the USPS system for the so-called last-mile delivery. By law, USPS is required to serve every address in the United States.

The use of parcel consolidators relying on the low-cost USPS network for last-mile deliveries is considered the cheapest form of parcel delivery. The growing use of this shipping model gives merchants the financial latitude to offer customers free shipping on many online orders. In the first half of 2011, 62 percent of all e-commerce sites offered some type of free shipping, according to Ron Wiener, EquaShip’s president and CEO.

The EquaShip service is designed for smaller e-commerce merchants who tender between one and 750 shipments a month, mostly merchandise sold over the Internet, according to Wiener. These shippers historically lack the package density to qualify for deeply discounted parcel consolidation services and must instead use the more expensive “retail” services offered by FedEx Corp., UPS Inc., and the U.S. Postal Service, Wiener said.

“EquaShip enables small to medium-sized shippers to ship through parcel consolidators who ordinarily only take on much larger customers,” Wiener said. He added that shippers using EquaShip could save between 25 and 88 percent off retail parcel rates for a three-pound parcel. ;