UPS adds ten Asia ports to its UPS Preferred LCL Ocean Freight service

UPS announced it has expanded its UPS Preferred LCL (less-than-container-load) Ocean Freight service to ten additional Asia-based ports, which it said provides shippers with up to 40 percent faster door-to-port United States-bound delivery for LCL shipments.

Company officials said the service will now be offered into and out of the Chinese ports of Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ningbo and Xiamen, expand to origins in Busan, South Korea, and Taipei in March, and to Bangkok, Thailand; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Singapore, and Hong Kong in April. And they said it can potentially cut a typical 3-to-4 week ocean transit time nearly in half. And after arriving at a West coast port, Preferred LCL ocean shipments are moved through an expedited UPS North American ground network utilized for air freight shipments, they said, explaining that this network ensures faster transit and day-definite delivery to more U.S. destination points than competing services and cuts 8-to-16 days of transit time off the current standard service for East coast deliveries.

UPS’s Preferred LCL Ocean Freight, UPS service meshes its North American ground network with containerized ocean services for Container Freight Station (CFS) to door delivery from Asia to the United States.

UPS has been offering standard LCL and FCL (full container load) services since 2001. This week’s announcement follows a September rollout of UPS Preferred LCL Ocean Freight in Japan.

UPS Vice President of Ocean Services Jimmy Crabbe told LM there were various drivers for the recent expansion of this service into ten new cities.

“We’ve seen a clear market trend of companies emerging from the recession looking to increase their speed to market without dramatically increasing their transportation costs,” he said. “During 2010, many companies had to rely significantly on air freight to get products to market quickly due to depleted inventories. Now that things are turning around, companies are looking for flexible options that allow them to be more economical while not losing speed. Traditional LCL services are economical but not necessarily fast. Based on our strong integrated global network, UPS has created a solution for our [shippers] that combines our expertise in LCL ocean freight transportation with the speed and flexibility of our expedited North American network for air freight. This allows us to offer a service to the U.S. that’s faster and more economical.”

Crabbe also explained that the manufacturing facilities for most of the importers that stand to benefit reside mostly in these Asian markets. And after the initial roll out of the service in Japan last year, these additional markets are where UPS saw the greatest need for the UPS Preferred LCL service.

As for shipper benefits, Crabbe said that faster speed-to-market leads the list.

“Our UPS Preferred LCL Ocean Freight service can potentially cut a typical three- to four- week transit time nearly in half by leveraging our expedited North American ground network,” he said. “This service also allows day-definite delivery for companies with time-sensitive needs. Additionally, customer using UPS’s Preferred LCL service benefit from additional features including simplified per-kilo pricing and streamlined invoicing.”

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