Hybrid shipping services are gaining traction in the shipping industry, mostly due to the fact that they play to the strengths of each company and are great for saving money.
Therefore, you wonder if UPS and FedEx work together to offer a hybrid shipping service, and if UPS takes FedEx packages. If you’d like to find out, keep reading to see what I discovered!
Does UPS Take FedEx In [currentyear]?
UPS doesn’t accept FedEx packages in [currentyear]. While UPS and FedEx both have hybrid shipping services that they offer with USPS, they don’t work together. If you were to drop a FedEx package off at UPS, at best, there would be a three day service disruption before your package is shipped, and at worst, it would be returned to sender.
If you’ve accidentally left a FedEx package at UPS, or just want to know how these types of issues are resolved between companies, be sure to keep reading to learn more!
Can I Send a FedEx Package Through UPS?
To help increase profits and drive down unnecessary costs, many shipping companies have begun partnering together to offer programs known as hybrid shipping services.
Both UPS and FedEx offer hybrid shipping services, such as FedEx Smart Post and UPS Mail Innovations. However, both of these services are offered in partnership with USPS.
So, do FedEx and USPS offer a hybrid shipping service that allows you to ship a FedEx package through UPS?
The short answer is, unfortunately, no.
The whole point of hybrid shipping services is for each company to be able to play to their advantages, and save money by avoiding their disadvantages.
For companies like FedEx and UPS, this means that partnering with USPS is ideal.
Advantages such as having a private fleet of planes for shipping purchases, and being able to coordinate more effectively with the latest technologies, are included with such a partnership.
USPS offers some unique advantages, due to the fact that it’s a federally funded, owned, and operated organization.
USPS is able to take on pieces of delivery that are typically expensive and grueling for companies like UPS and FedEx
These services include last-mile delivery, and having thousands of locations available for public use.
Both FedEx and UPS offer locations such as the UPS Store and the FedEx Office.
However, these are not fully incorporated offices- rather, they’re franchise opportunities that are loosely connected to FedEx and UPS, but are still third-party businesses.
So, for all of the above reasons, FedEx and UPS don’t offer a hybrid shipping service with one another, only with USPS.
Therefore, this means that you cannot ship a package with a FedEx label with UPS.
However, this is not to say that FedEx and UPS don’t ever work together, just that packages can’t typically cross between the two services.
Do FedEx and UPS Work Together?
FedEx and UPS are fierce rivals in the shipping industry.
This is due to the fact that, as the two largest privately-owned shipping companies, they operate in much the same way, and offer consumers most of the same advantages.
As discussed previously, these similarities are what makes programs like a hybrid shipping service offered between the two companies unrealistic.
However, they do have a history of working together in other ways.
For example, in light of recent events, FedEx and UPS came together in a rather extraordinary way to help distribute vaccines all across America.
What Happens If You Drop off a FedEx Package at UPS?
Since there is no hybrid shipping service that FedEx and UPS offer in partnership with one another, what happens if you were to drop off a package with a FedEx label at UPS?
Your best case scenario if you were to drop a FedEx package anywhere other than a FedEx location is a service delay of about three days.
This means that it’ll take whichever company actually has the package, in this case UPS, about three days to realize that this package shouldn’t be at this locatioin.
After the package has been caught in the UPS facility, it will be forwarded to a nearby FedEx facility to actually begin the shipping process as planned.
Because of all of the confusion, your package will typically arrive around 3 days later than usual, which can be a real bummer if you’ve paid for any express services.
A service delay of three days is also not guaranteed, and the amount of time it takes for your package to be rerouted to the correct facility can vary widely.
This depends on when the mistake is caught, and the resources currently available for the facility to try and reroute the package.
The worst case scenario is that the package will be returned to you, which can also take about three days, and doesn’t come with the possibility of a refund or re-service, considering FedEx never received the package.
To know more, you can also read our posts on whether or not UPS takes Apple Pay, the difference between UPS & USPS, and how fast is UPS Ground.
Conclusion
UPS doesn’t accept FedEx packages, as the two companies don’t offer a hybrid shipping service.
However, FedEx and UPS have worked together in the past to help provide vaccine deliveries. However, they do not work together to deliver packages.
