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A courier is a person or organization that delivers a message, package or letter from one place or person to another place or person. [1] Typically, a courier provides their courier service on a commercial contract basis; however, some couriers are government or state agency employees (for example: a diplomatic courier).
Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of express services, and swift delivery times, which are optional for most everyday mail services. As a premium service, couriers are usually more expensive than standard mail services, and their use is normally limited to packages where one or more of these features are considered important enough to warrant the cost.
Courier services operate on all scales, from within specific towns or cities, to regional, national and global services. Large courier companies include DHL, DTDC, FedEx, EMS International, TNT, UPS, India Post, J&T Express and Aramex. These offer services worldwide, typically via a hub and spoke model.
Couriers services utilizing courier software provide electronic proof of delivery and electronic tracking details.
In ancient history, messages were hand-delivered using a variety of methods, including runners, homing pigeons and riders on horseback. Before the introduction of mechanized courier services, foot messengers physically ran miles to their destinations. Xenophon attributed the first use of couriers to the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger.
Famously, the Ancient Greek courier Pheidippides is said to have run 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to bring the news of the Greek victory over the Persians in 490 BCE. The long-distance race known as a marathon is named for this run.
Judah's king, Hezekiah, dates between 200 and 400 BCE, where several couriers brought letters throughout the land of Judah and Israel (cf. 2 Chron 30 ESV).
Starting at the time of Augustus, the ancient Greeks and Romans made use of a class of horse and chariot-mounted couriers called anabasii to quickly bring messages and commands from long distances. [2] The word anabasii comes from the Greek ἀνάβασις(anábasis, "ascent, mounting"). [3] They were contemporary with the Greek hemeredromi, who carried their messages by foot.
In Roman Britain, Rufinus made use of anabasii, as documented in Saint Jerome's memoirs (adv. Ruffinum, l. 3. c. 1.): "Idcircone Cereales et Anabasii tui per diversas provincias cucurrerunt, ut laudes meas legerent?" ("Is it on that account that your Cereales and Anabasii circulated through many provinces, so that they might read my praises?")
In the Middle Ages, royal courts maintained their own messengers who were paid little more than common labourers.
In cities, there are often bicycle couriers or motorcycle couriers but for consignments requiring delivery over greater distance networks, this may often include trucks, railroads and aircraft.
Many companies which operate under a just-in-time or "JIT" inventory method often use on-board couriers (OBCs). On-board couriers are individuals who can travel at a moment's notice anywhere in the world, usually via commercial airlines. While this type of service is the second costliest—general aviation charters are far more expensive—companies analyze the cost of service to engage an on-board courier versus the "cost" the company will realize should the product not arrive by a specified time (an assembly line stopping, untimely court filing, lost sales from product or components missing a delivery deadline, loss of life from a delayed organ transplant).
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The courier business in Australia is a very competitive industry and is mainly concentrated in the high population areas in and around the capital cities. With such a vast mass of land to cover the courier companies tend to transport either by air or by the main transport routes and national highways. The only large company that provides a country-wide service is Australia Post.[ citation needed ]Australian Post operates quite differently to government departments, as it is government-owned enterprise focused on service delivery in a competitive market. It operates in a fully competitive market against other delivery services such as Fastway, UPS, and Transdirect. [4]
International courier services in China include TNT, EMS International, DHL, FedEx and UPS. These companies provide nominal worldwide service for both inbound and outbound shipments, connecting China to countries such as the US, Australia, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. Of the international courier services, the Dutch company TNT is considered to have the most capable local fluency and efficacy for third- and fourth- tiered cities. EMS International is a unit of China Post, and as such is not available for shipments originating outside China.
Domestic courier services include SF Express, STO Express (申通), ZTO Express (中通), YTO Express (圆通), E-EMS (E邮宝), Cainiao Express (菜鸟) and many other operators of sometimes microscopic scales. E-EMS, is the special product of a co-operative arrangement between China Post and Alipay, which is the online payment unit of Alibaba Group. It is only available for the delivery of online purchases made using Alipay.
Within the Municipality of Beijing, TongCheng KuaiDi (同城快递), also a unit of China Post, provides intra-city service using cargo bicycles.
International courier services in India include DHL, FedEx, Blue Dart Express,Spicexpress and Logistics Pvt Ltd, Ekart, DTDC, VRL Courier Services, Delhivery, TNT, [5] Amazon.com, OCS and Gati Ltd. Apart from these, several local couriers also operate across India. Almost all of these couriers can be tracked online. India Post, an undertaking by the Indian government, is the largest courier service with around 155 thousand branches (comprising 139 thousand (90%) in rural areas and 16 thousand (10%) in urban areas). [6] All couriers use the PIN code or postal index number introduced by India Post to locate delivery address. Additionally, the contact number of the recipient and sender are voluntarily added on the courier for ease of locating the address.
The history of courier services in Bangladesh dates back to the late 1970s when private companies started offering delivery and parcel services. These companies played a crucial role in facilitating the movement of documents and goods within the country. Over the years, the courier industry in Bangladesh has grown significantly, adapting to changes in technology and expanding its services to include international shipments. Today, various local and international courier companies operate in Bangladesh, contributing to the country's logistics and trade networks.
Couriers that operate across Bangladesh include Sundarban Courier Service(40% market share), SA Paribahan, Pathao Courier, e-dak Courier, RedX, Sheba Delivery, Janani Express Parcel Service, Delivery Tiger, eCourier, Karatoa Courier Service, Sonar Courier. [7] Almost all of these couriers can be tracked online. Also international courier services in Bangladesh include DHL, FedEx, United Express, Royale International Bangladesh, DSL Worldwide Courier Service, Aramex, Pos Laju, J&T Express, and Amazon.com.
International courier services in Malaysia include DHL, FedEx, Pgeon, Skynet Express, ABX Express, GDex, Pos Laju, J&T Express, and Amazon.com. Apart from these, several local couriers also operate across Malaysia. Almost all of these couriers can be tracked online.
The main courier services available in Ireland as alternatives to the national An Post system are Parcel Direct Ireland, DHL, UPS, TNT, DPD and FedEx.
There are several international courier companies in Singapore including TNT, DHL and FedEx. Despite being a small country, the demand for courier services is high. Many local courier companies have sprung up to meet this demand. Most courier companies in Singapore focus on local deliveries instead of international freight.
The genus of the UK same-day courier market stems from the London Taxi companies but soon expanded into dedicated motorcycle despatch riders with the taxi companies setting up separate arms to their companies to cover the courier work. During the late 1970s small provincial and regional companies were popping up throughout the country. Today, there are many large companies offering next-day courier services.[ citation needed ]
There are many 'specialist' couriers usually for the transportation of items such as freight/pallets, sensitive documents and liquids.
The 'Man & Van'/Freelance courier business model, is highly popular in the United Kingdom, with thousands upon thousands of independent couriers and localised companies, offering next-day and same day services. This is likely to be so popular because of the low business requirements (a vehicle) and the lucrative number of items sent within the UK every day. In fact, from 1988 to 2016, UK couriers were considered universally self employed, though the number of salaried couriers employed by firms has grown substantially since then. However, since the dawn of the electronic age the way in which businesses use couriers has changed dramatically. Prior to email and the ability to create PDFs, documents represented a significant proportion of the business. However, over the past five years,[ when? ] documentation revenues have decreased by 50 percent. Customers are also demanding more from their courier partners. Therefore, more organisations prefer to use the services of larger organisations who are able to provide more flexibility and levels of service, which has led to another level of courier company, regional couriers. This is usually a local company which has expanded to more than one office to cover an area.
Some UK couriers offer next-day services to other European countries. FedEx offers next-day air delivery to many EU countries. Cheaper 'by-road' options are also available, varying from two days' delivery time (such as France), to up to a week (former USSR countries).
Large couriers often require an account to be held (and this can include daily scheduled collections). Senders are therefore primarily in the commercial/industrial sector (and not the general public); some couriers such as DHL do however allow public sending (at higher cost than regular senders).
In recent years, the increased popularity of Black Friday in the UK has placed some firms under operational stress. [8]
The process of booking a courier has changed; it is no longer a lengthy task of making numerous calls to different courier companies to request a quote. Booking a courier is predominantly carried out online. The courier industry has been quick to adapt to an ever-changing digital landscape, meeting the needs of mobile and desktop consumers as well as e-commerce and online retailers, offering end users access to instant online payments, parcel tracking, delivery notifications, and the convenience of door to door collection and delivery to almost any destination in the world.
The courier industry has long held an important place in United States commerce and has been involved in pivotal moments in the nation's history such as westward migration and the gold rush. Wells Fargo was founded in 1852 and rapidly became the preeminent package delivery company. The company specialised in shipping gold, packages and newspapers throughout the West, making a Wells Fargo office in every camp and settlement a necessity for commerce and connections to home. Shortly afterward, the Pony Express was established to move packages more quickly than the traditional stagecoach. It illustrated the demand for timely deliveries across the nation, a concept that continued to evolve with the railroads, automobiles and interstate highways and which has emerged into today's courier industry.
The courier industry in United States is a $59 billion industry, with 90% of the business shared by DHL, FedEx, UPS and USA Couriers. On the other hand, regional and/or local courier and delivery services were highly diversified and tended to be smaller operations; the top 50 firms accounted for just a third of the sector's revenues. USPS is mail or packages delivered by the government and are the only ones who can legally ship to mailboxes.[ citation needed ]
In a 2019 quarterly earnings call, the CEO of FedEx named Amazon as a direct competitor, [9] cementing the e-commerce company's growth into the field of logistics.
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States, its insular areas and associated states. It is one of a few government agencies explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States. As of 2023, the USPS has 525,469 career employees and 114,623 non-career employees.
FedEx Corporation, originally Federal Express Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of the company's original air division, Federal Express, which was used from 1973 until 2000. FedEx today is best known for its air delivery service, FedEx Express, which was one of the first major shipping companies to offer overnight delivery as a flagship service. Since then, FedEx also started FedEx Ground, FedEx Office, FedEx Supply Chain, FedEx Freight, and various other services across multiple subsidiaries, often meant to respond to its main competitor, UPS. FedEx assists in the transport of some United States Postal Service packages through their Air Cargo Network contract.
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.
DHL is a German logistics company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It provides courier, package delivery and express mail service, delivering over 1.7 billion parcels per year. A subsidiary of the German logistics firm DHL Group, its express mail service DHL Express is one of the market leaders for parcel services in Europe. DHL Express is Germany's main international courier and parcel service. DHL also operates a separate parcel service targeting the German consumer market in conjunction with Deutsche Post.
Deutsche Post AG, trading as DHL Group, is a German multinational package delivery and supply chain management company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is one of the world's largest courier companies. The postal division, Deutsche Post, delivers 61 million letters each day in Germany, making it Europe's largest such company. The parcel division DHL is a wholly owned subsidiary claimed to be present in over 220 countries and territories. DHL Group was the largest logistics company worldwide in 2022.
FedEx Ground, a subsidiary of the FedEx Corporation, is an American ground package delivery company headquartered in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. The company began as Roadway Package System (RPS), founded in 1985 by transportation company Roadway Services Inc., later renamed Caliber System. FedEx bought Caliber in 1998 to complement its existing FedEx Express business and rebranded Caliber's RPS package delivery service FedEx Ground in 2000.
Air cargo is any property carried or to be carried in an aircraft. Air cargo comprises air freight, air express and airmail.
FedEx Express is a major American cargo airline based in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. As of 2023, it is the world's largest cargo airline in terms of fleet size and freight tons flown. It is the namesake and leading subsidiary of FedEx Corporation, delivering freight and packages to more than 375 destinations over 220 countries across six continents each day. FedEx Express is also the world's largest express transportation company.
Express mail is an expedited mail delivery service for which the customer pays a premium for faster delivery. Express mail is a service for domestic and international mail, and is in most nations governed by the country's own postal administration. Since 1999, the international express delivery services are governed by the EMS Cooperative.
Parcel post is a postal service for mail that is too heavy for normal letter post. It is usually slower than letter post. The development of the parcel post is closely connected with the development of the railway network which enabled parcels to be carried in bulk, to a regular schedule, and at economical prices. Today, many parcels also travel by road and international shipments may travel by sea or airmail.
Parcelforce Worldwide is a courier and logistics service in the United Kingdom. Parcelforce Worldwide is a trading name of the Royal Mail, which is a subsidiary of International Distribution Services, and is organised within the UK Parcels, International and Letters division of the group. The company delivers to destinations worldwide, using an international partner network. Parcelforce Worldwide is a provider of express delivery services covering 99.6% of the world's population, with over 6,500 employees.
Dimensional weight, also known as volumetric weight, is a pricing technique for commercial freight transport, which uses an estimated weight that is calculated from the length, width and height of a package.
Tracking numbers are numbers assigned to packages when they are shipped. Tracking numbers are useful for knowing the location of time sensitive deliveries. It is a unique ID number or code assigned to a package or parcel. The tracking number is typically printed on the shipping label as a bar code that can be scanned by anyone with a bar code reader or smartphone.
Turkmenpost is the national postal operator of Turkmenistan. The company is responsible for the delivery of mail and issuing postage stamps. It has been a member of the Universal Postal Union since January 26, 1993. Turkmenpost employs about 2,000 people and has over 146 post offices, with its headquarters in Ashgabat.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) provides Priority Mail Express for domestic U.S. delivery, and offers two types of international Express Mail services, although only one of them is part of the EMS standard. One is called Priority Mail Express International and the other service is called Global Express Guaranteed (GXG). The latter has no relation to "EMS" International service as provided by the EMS Cooperative.
Whistl is a postal delivery company based in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England. The company primarily competes with UK Mail, UPS, Parcelforce, DHL, Evri, Royal Mail and Yodel. According to the company, it processes about 25% of the mail in the United Kingdom, amounting to over 3.7 billion items per year in 2015.
Mongol Post is the national postal service of Mongolia. The formerly state-owned Mongol Post was transformed into a joint stock company on April 11, 2016, by offering 34 percent of the total shares to the public. It was founded by the Mongolian People's Republic in 1935 and went under several different names before its current structure was established in 1994. The Mongol Post JSC is charge of postal services, delivery and issuing of postage stamps. The headquarters are in Ulaanbaatar, and the company employs over 900 people and has over 389 post offices.
LSO, originally known as Lone Star Overnight, is an Austin, Texas-based regional shipping carrier that focuses on Express next day delivery, utilizing both air and ground transportation in Texas, southeastern New Mexico, certain metro markets in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama and Tennessee, as well as northern Mexico.
A parcel locker is an automated postal box that allows users for a self-service collection of parcels and oversize letters as well as the dispatch of parcels.
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