United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is an American multinational shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company specializing in telegraphs, UPS has expanded to become a Fortune 500 company and one of the world's largest shipping couriers. UPS today is primarily known for its ground shipping services as well as the UPS Store, a retail chain which assists UPS shipments and provides tools for small businesses. UPS offers air shipping on an overnight or two-day basis and delivers to post office boxes through UPS Mail Innovations and UPS SurePost, two services that pass on packages to the United States Postal Service for last-mile delivery.
Package delivery or parcel delivery is the delivery of shipping containers, parcels, or high-value mail as single shipments. The service is provided by most postal systems, express mail, private courier companies, and less-than-truckload shipping carriers. Package delivery is different in each country, and how packages are delivered is closely connected with the cost for delivering to that country as well as population. In 2019, China, The United States, and Japan were the leaders in package delivery while Latvia, Macau, and Iceland were the bottom three. The population of the bottom three barely totals 2 million while the population of the top three tops totals more than 2 billion. Package delivery is an every day occurrence in the US while many other countries do not have this luxury.
In transportation, freight refers to goods conveyed by land, water or air, while cargo refers specifically to freight when conveyed via water or air. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in case of goods in the cold-chain, because the perishable inventory is always in transit towards a final end-use, even when it is held in cold storage or other similar climate-controlled facilities, including warehouses.
The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is a shipping route about 5,600 kilometres (3,500 mi) long. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is the shortest shipping route between the western part of Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific region.
A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S, usually known simply as Maersk, is a Danish shipping and logistics company founded in 1904 by Arnold Peter Møller and his father Peter Mærsk Møller.
Drop shipping is a form of retail business in which the seller accepts customer orders without keeping stock on hand. Instead, in a form of supply chain management, the seller transfers the orders and their shipment details either to the manufacturer, a wholesaler, another retailer, or a fulfillment house, which then ships the goods directly to the customer.
A freight rate is a price at which a certain cargo is delivered from one point to another. The price depends on the form of the cargo, the mode of transport, the weight of the cargo, and the distance to the delivery destination. Many shipping services, especially air carriers, use dimensional weight for calculating the price, which takes into account both weight and volume of the cargo.
A moving company, also known as a removalist or van line, is a company specializes in assisting individuals and businesses with relocating their goods from one location to another. Moving companies may offer additional or all-inclusive services for relocations, like packing, loading, moving, unloading, unpacking, and arranging of items to be shifted. Additional services may include cleaning services for houses, offices or warehousing facilities.
A freight forwarder or forwarding agent is a person or a company who co-ordinates and organizes the movement of shipments on behalf of a shipper by liaising with carriers. The carriers may use a variety of shipping modes, including ships, airplanes, trucks, and railroads, and often use multiple modes for a single shipment. A freight forwarder does not move the goods but acts as an agent in the logistics network and will carry out freight consolidation, rate negotiations, shipment tracking, customs and other documentation, among other tasks. FIATA describes a freight forwarder as the "Architect of transport".
Etsy Inc. is an American e-commerce company with an emphasis on the selling of handmade or vintage items and craft supplies. These items fall under a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home decor, religious items, furniture, toys, art, as well as craft supplies and tools. Items described as vintage must be at least 20 years old. The site follows in the tradition of open craft fairs, giving sellers personal storefronts where they list their goods for a fee of US$0.20 per item. Beginning in 2013, Etsy allowed sellers to sell mass-manufactured items.
Shiply is a UK-based limited company providing an internet marketplace where transport service requesters may list items they need to move, and where providers of transport services can bid in a reverse auction format. The website attracts a variety of transport providers, including vehicle shipping companies, household movers, general freight transporters, and other types of logistics companies that essentially look for jobs via the Shiply Load board, where users (customers) are posting moving requests that the providers can then bid on. The customer can then sift through the prospective bids on their posted request, and select a provider they are comfortable with. Shiply got it's start back in 2008 in the United Kingdom, but eventually expanded to several additional countries including the USA and Canada.
Individual action on climate change is about personal choices that everyone can make to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of their lifestyles. Such personal choices are related to the way people travel, their diet, shopping habits, consumption of goods and services, number of children they have and so on. Individuals can also get active in local and political advocacy work around climate action. People who wish to reduce their carbon footprint, can for example reduce their air travel for holidays, use bicycles instead of cars on a daily basis, eat a plant-based diet, and use consumer products for longer. Avoiding meat and dairy products has been called "the single biggest way" how individuals can reduce their environmental impacts.
OnTrac Logistics, Inc. was a privately held logistics company that contracted regional shipping services in the Western United States. In 2021 OnTrac Logistics was acquired by east coast delivery firm LaserShip for $1.3 billion, the combined business was later rebranded back to OnTrac.
In supply chain management and transportation planning, the last mile or last kilometer is the last leg of a journey comprising the movement of passengers and goods from a transportation hub to a final destination. The concept of "last mile" was adopted from the telecommunications industry, which faced difficulty connecting individual homes to the main telecommunications network. Similarly, in supply chain management, last-mile describes the logistical challenges at the last phase of transportation getting people and packages from hubs to their final destinations.
Shipping Wars is an American reality television series that aired on A&E from January 10, 2012, to April 29, 2015. Season 9 premiered on November 30, 2021, with a new cast of shippers. The show follows various independent shippers who have discovered that money can be made transporting large/bulky/unusual items that traditional carriers either cannot or will not haul. They compete for shipments in timed auctions held by uShip, one of the largest online auction houses for independent shippers.
XPO, Inc. is an American transportation company that conducts less-than-truckload shipping in North America. The company has headquarters in Greenwich, Connecticut, US and 564 locations globally.
Maersk Line is a Danish international container shipping company and the largest operating subsidiary of Maersk, a Danish business conglomerate. Founded in 1928, it is the world's second largest container shipping company by both fleet size and cargo capacity, offering regular services to 374 ports in 116 countries. In 2019, it employed 83,625 people where 18,398 of which are vessel crew and the other 65,227 are processing and operations personnel in offices and ports. Maersk Line operates over 708 vessels and has a total capacity of about 4.1 million TEU.
Grab Holdings Inc. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered in One-North, Singapore. It is the developer of a super-app for ride-hailing, food delivery, and digital payment services on mobile devices that operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Careem is a Dubai-based super app with operations in over 70 cities, covering 10 countries across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia regions. The company, which was valued at over US$2 billion in 2018, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber after being acquired for $3.1 billion in January 2020. Careem expanded into the food delivery business with Careem Now in November 2018, which evolved into Careem Food as well as the rapid grocery delivery service Careem Quik in 2020, and launched a digital payment platform, Careem Pay in April 2022. In April 2023, Careem's Super App business was spun out into a new legal entity, which e& acquired a 50.03% stake in, while Uber maintains full ownership of Careem's ride-hailing business. The Super App currently offers 20 digital services in the UAE including ride-hailing, food, grocery, micromobility, DineOut, and a subscription-based service - Careem Plus, amongst others.
Foremost Group is a privately held American shipping company, headquartered in New York City. It operates globally, chartering vessels to companies in the dry bulk shipping industry. Its clients include Bunge, Cargill, Dreyfus (Rotterdam), MOL (Tokyo) and NYK Line (Tokyo). Foremost Group was founded in 1964 by businessman James Si-Cheng Chao and his wife Ruth Mulan Chu Chao, who each immigrated to the United States from China by way of Taiwan. Its chair and CEO from 2018 to 2024 was Angela Chao, the sixth daughter of the company's founders and the third of their children born in the United States.
