United Parcel Service Inc. posted a 14.5% increase in second-quarter sales despite shipping fewer packages than it did a year earlier, as higher shipping rates offset a package slowdown with more shoppers venturing to stores.
Average daily shipping volume fell 0.8% globally and 2.9% in the U.S. compared with a year ago, when widespread lockdowns kept shoppers at home and shifted purchases of everything from toilet paper to toothpaste online.
“Many of our brick-and-mortar enterprise customers reopened their stores and as economies reopened, customers went back to those stores,” Chief Executive Carol Tomé said Tuesday.
Profit still rose more than 45% on an adjusted basis, helped by an increase of 15.3% in revenue per piece shipped and tighter monitoring of costs. Both revenue and earnings topped analyst projections.
The results come as Ms. Tomé pursues a “better, not bigger” strategy, where the company is being more selective about which customers it does business with and what items it ships. In addition to raising rates and implementing surcharges, UPS has been increasing contracted shipping prices for large shippers, in some cases as high as 30%, to improve its bottom line.
