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FedEx Competing With Its Own Customers. WTF?

Maybe bloggers, including this one, over-reacted to FedEx's behavior toward a kid who made furniture out of their boxes. But this is no joke.

There is something very wrong with the corporate culture of FedEx Kinko. Now they're competing with their own customers by selling "more than 25,000" kinds of office furniture, supplies, lamps, chairs, office accessories, etc.

"No telling what categories they'll add next. Remember Amazon just started with books!" says the president of a major online office and household furnishings company who doesn't want to be identified because they haven't switched shippers yet.

Why would FedEx dilute their brand? Why should merchants pay Fed Ex millions of dollars a year to ship their products when they are now competitors? There are two credible alternatives to Fed Ex: UPS and DHL. I hope both of them have the smarts to jump in and offer a great deal to merchants who want to switch.

Wake up FedEx!

Categories: Commentary, Worst Practices

BL Ochman | Sep 1 05 1:24 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I blame Kinkos ;)

And, while they already sell some of that stuff in the FedExKinkos stores, it seems odd that they would want to take it online. Why deal with ops hassles?

Posted by: Jeremy Pepper at September 1, 2005 6:43 PM

So what's an ops hassle?

Posted by: B.L. Ochman at September 1, 2005 9:55 PM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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