Dear Friends,
By now, you’ve most likely heard of the looming UPS strike and the potential impact it could have on your business. In the event of a strike, all UPS shipments tendered or in transit will immediately come to a halt. Because nearly every insurance policy excludes any loss resulting from non-performance or delay due to labor disturbance, it will be impossible to recover the cost of lost or damaged shipments during the potential strike.
ACTIONS WE ARE TAKING
- We have temporarily disabled UPS as a shipping option and enabled FedEx for all listings on The Lupulin Exchange.
- Once the dispute has been resolved, we will restore UPS as a shipping option, as well as your previous settings for Shipping Preferences.
- I will post an update here once something changes.
RECOMMENDED ACTIONS FOR BREWERS, MERCHANTS, AND GROWERS
- If you have any open UPS orders, ensure they are shipped no later than July 24th.
- If you are a seller who doesn’t want to ship via FedEx, please remove any active listings until the dispute is resolved.
- Avoid purchasing anything that ships via UPS (on The Lupulin Exchange & elsewhere) until the dispute is resolved. This is the best defense to prevent your packages from becoming stuck on a UPS truck in the event a strike does occur on August 1st.
- Please note that we cannot accept any loss claims for UPS shipments during a strike!
- It’s important to understand the magnitude of this potential event and its effect on the operations of other carriers. For reference, UPS handles ~21 million packages per day while FedEx handles ~16 million. There is no carrier that can absorb this volume of shipments. If a strike does occur, shipping anything during that time will be a mess. Plan accordingly by avoiding or at least allowing plenty of extra time for all shipments in early August.
- Monitor the situation. You can find updates from UPS here or follow the latest news articles. If you’d like to receive immediate email notifications for updates to this post, click on the notifications dropdown below & select “Watching.”
Hopefully, a resolution will be reached soon and the potential strike will be avoided. But if a strike does occur, I hope the impacts to your business are minimal.