Is LaserShip really the Problem?
Yes, but our excessive consumerism doesn’t help either
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“Okay, it says it’ll be delivered by Monday. It wasn’t due here until Wednesday. So I guess it’ll be here by Tuesday night!”
I contemplated to myself after checking the tracking information for my packages, specifically ones that contain Christmas gifts for immediate family members. I have always made it a point to get my Christmas shopping done early and this year even more so, as I found myself needing to get more gifts than I usually do. Things would go smoothly: My packages would be here on Tuesday, I would get my gift wrapping tools between Wednesday and Thursday, and Friday would be a gift wrapping fiesta. Boom. All my Christmas shopping and wrapping would be done early!
Oh, but if only that were true.
What I didn’t take into account was that my packages were being delivered by the infamous LaserShip, leaving my family’s gifts in a sea of uncertainty.
A number of you may be asking: What’s Lasership? LaserShip has been able to partner with several major retail stores and services including Amazon, Zara, Blue Apron, and Ulta Beauty to name a few. If you’ve done your online shopping with any of these places and live on the East Coast or Midwest, chances are you’ve had a package or two delivered by LaserShip.
But for those of you who don’t know, Lasership is a last-mile delivery company that services the Eastern and Midwest area of the United States. As of 2018, the company has 64 facilities and 4 sortation centers. They started off as a document delivery service in 1986, but by the ’90s had been able to enter into the small parcel business right when the internet was becoming ‘a big thing’.
When you visit the LaserShip website and take a look at their mission, they seem to portray themselves as the “small company that could”. The company has experienced rapid growth since it’s founding, and they attribute that to their ability to “deliver packages to you faster than national carriers”.
But how could a company that “delivers faster than national carriers” be arguably the most hated service in the industry?
