UPS And Optoro Form Strategic Alliance To Enhance Retail Reverse Logistics Services
December 21 2016 - 8:05AM
UPS (NYSE:UPS) has formed a strategic alliance with Optoro,
providing a one-stop shop solution for retailers and manufacturers
to optimize the transportation and disposition of returns and
excess inventory. The companies’ joint reverse logistics solutions
combine UPS’s operational and logistics expertise with Optoro’s
software platform that maximizes recovery value and reduces
environmental waste.
Founded in 2010, Optoro is a technology company that helps
retailers and manufacturers manage, process and sell returned and
excess inventory. Using comprehensive data analytics and
multi-channel online marketing, Optoro’s software platform
determines the best path for each item, maximizing recovery and
reducing environmental waste. Optoro brings an innovative approach
to the traditional liquidations model, simultaneously leveraging
marketplaces to efficiently sell returned and excess goods across
major digital platforms that include Amazon, eBay and Optoro’s own
BLINQ.com and BULQ.com retail websites.
“We’re here to help retailers and manufacturers simplify returns
management and unlock the full value from their reverse logistics
programs,” said Alan Gershenhorn, UPS Chief Commercial Officer.
“Optoro is an excellent complement to UPS’s existing portfolio of
retail services that optimize the flow of goods, information and
funds.”
“Retailers are facing a growing number of challenges, with the
rise of customer returns being one of the most prominent, totaling
over $260B in value annually in the U.S.” said Tobin Moore,
co-founder and CEO of Optoro. “We’re excited to partner with UPS to
couple our innovative technology platform with their world-class
logistics services to offer the retail industry a best in class
solution for this problem.”
The alliance was announced leading into UPS’s National Returns
Day and post-holiday returns week. UPS’s busiest day of the year
for returns will be Thursday, January 5, when holiday shoppers use
UPS to return more than 1.3 million packages to retailers and
manufacturers. More than 5.8 million packages will be returned with
UPS during the first full week of January 2017. In 2016, shoppers
returned more than 1 million packages on UPS’s National Returns Day
and more than 5 million packages during the company’s peak returns
week.
UPS recently invested in Optoro through the UPS Strategic
Enterprise Fund. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Investments made through the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund help the
company better understand new technologies and develop new business
models in the rapidly changing retail business environment.
One of the core goals of both UPS and Optoro is to minimize the
impact that returns has on the environment. UPS is consistently
named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and one of Corporate
Responsibility Magazine’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens. Optoro was a
winner of the World Economic Forum’s Circular Economy Award as well
as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2016 Corporate Citizenship Award
for Best Environmental Stewardship.
UPS offers technology-driven services that help retailers
deliver the experience shoppers desire, including:
- UPS My Choice® provides convenient delivery
options that fit busy lifestyles. More than 31 million people
worldwide use the service to manage when and where their
residential deliveries arrive;
- UPS Access Point™ network offers more than
100,000 daily access points to return a shipment that include drop
boxes, The UPS Store locations, Authorized Shipping Outlets, and
UPS Access Point™ partner locations; this on top of handing it to
any UPS driver;
- UPS Print Return Labels can be included in
outbound shipments to simplify the returns process;
- UPS Electronic Return Labels can be emailed to
consumers directly from UPS to improve their returns
experience;
- UPS Returns Plus allows the merchant to send a
driver to deliver a return label and pick up the return package
from any address; and
- UPS Returns® Exchange is when a driver
simultaneously picks up the return item in exchange for the
replacement item delivery.
About UPS
UPS (NYSE: UPS) is a global leader in logistics, offering a
broad range of solutions including transporting packages and
freight; facilitating international trade, and deploying advanced
technology to more efficiently manage the world of business.
Headquartered in Atlanta, UPS serves more than 220 countries and
territories worldwide. The company can be found on the web
at ups.com® and its corporate blog can be found
at longitudes.ups.com. To get UPS news direct,
visit pressroom.ups.com/RSS or follow
@UPS_News.
About the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund
The UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund is the private equity
strategic investment arm of UPS. Established in 1997, the Fund is a
corporate venture capital group that focuses on innovation,
developing critical partnerships and gaining knowledge returns from
its investments in technology companies and emerging market
spaces.
About Optoro
Optoro is a technology company that is transforming the way the
nation’s leading retailers process and sell their returned and
excess inventory. Through its use of comprehensive, world-class
data analytics and multi-channel online marketing, Optoro’s
software platform determines the best path for returned and excess
goods, maximizing recovery value, enabling consumers to get great
deals, and reducing environmental waste. Optoro, BLINQ, and BULQ
are trademarks of Optoro, Inc. and may be registered in certain
jurisdictions. For more information, please visit www.Optoro.com
and follow us on twitter at @optoroinc.
Matt O’Connor, UPS
404-828-8113
matthewoconnor@ups.com
Carly Llewellyn, Optoro
908-578-8303
carly@optoro.com
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