LSO plans to expand coverage into five states later this year

Austin, Texas-based Lone Star Overnight (LSO), a regional parcel delivery services provider serving Texas and Oklahoma, recently rolled out plans to expand its service footprint, effective in early September, to five states, including: Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas.

Company officials said that in Louisiana, LSO serves the Shreveport and Lake Charles metropolitan areas, and will add most Southern Louisiana areas along the I-10 corridor to include New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Houma, Hammond and other cities in that part of the state and will now serve almost 75% of the Louisiana population. And in Arkansas, LSO’s expanded coverage will include the Little Rock/Conway metropolitan area and Northwest Arkansas, including Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers and other nearby areas. LSO said that cumulatively the St. Louis and Kansas City metropolitan areas include nearly 90% of the population and e-commerce deliveries in Missouri, adding that the new service area covers the Missouri and Illinois side of the St. Louis metropolitan area, and the Missouri and Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area.

What’s more, LSO said that the company’s service area is comprised of 100% of all Texas-based zip codes and almost two-thirds of the population of Oklahoma, reaching roughly 32 million people. And it added that these expansion efforts will increase LSO’s overall parcel delivery coverage by more than one-third to roughly 43 million people, coupled with what it called a “similarly large percent of e-commerce orders and GDP of those areas.” The majority of e-commerce and ground package deliveries handled by LSO out of Dallas to the new and existing service areas will be delivered in one business day, according to LSO, with deliveries east of Lake Charles delivered in two days.

LSO CEO Dick Metzler told LM that this expansion was driven by requests from its e-commerce customers after the 2020 Peak Season and intensified as 2021 went on.

“Based on the way FedEx and UPS treated shippers in Peak Season 2020, and what they have been told about 2021, it feels like everyone is looking for ways to de-risk their exposure to the big national carriers,” said Metzler. “This is one thing they asked us to do to help under the circumstances they are facing with FedEx and UPS, and we are happy to do it.”

As for the main customer benefits of this expansion, Metzler called it a small but symbolic example that it is doing what its customers need.

“In my humble opinion, the duopoly is doing less for its customers but a lot more for their shareholders,” he said. “I have a hard time imagining that there will not be a price to pay down the line. I just don’t know what it is right now.”

When asked what the biggest competitive advantages of this news are from an LSO perspective, Metzler said that a lot of e-commerce merchants are continuing to look for alternatives to FedEx and UPS.

“This will give them another reason to consider LSO and a clear indication that we are listening…and responding,” he said.