BAX Global starts Economy service for shippers

BAX Global starts Economy service for shippers    BAX Global has started a service that allows shippers to move their cargo to any destination within the U.S. mainland by no later than five days.
   BAX’s Economy product was developed for shippers who are less concerned about time and more about the price of transportation, said Jerry Levy, vice president of marketing for BAX, in an interview.
   Shipments may arrive earlier than the five-day delivery commitment, depending on the pickup and delivery destinations, Levy said. “It will be all ground and definitely not time definite,” he added.
   Levy said BAX employees recognized the need for the new service through shipper requests. The impact of higher fuel costs is another significant factor driving the service.
   Jeffery Barrie, BAX’s vice president of global sales and marketing, said the company will use “distance-based pricing” to set the rates for the service, which should be “substantially lower in cost” compared to BAX’s traditional time-definite services.
   Irvine, Calif.-based BAX began testing its Economy service with several dozen shippers on the West Coast in February. BAX said key features that its test shippers found attractive about the Economy service are:
   * Overall price, rather than specific delivery commitment.
   * No size or weight restrictions.
   * Shipment through BAX’s dedicated ground network.
   * Pickup the same day as requested.
   Barrie explained that importers can combine the BAX Economy service with air and ocean shipments for economical distribution throughout the United States. The service, however, is not designed for less than truckload or to and from Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico, he said.
   In addition, Barrie said Latin American importers may find the service useful for their multisourced shipment orders from the United States that they consolidate into single shipments through BAX in Miami.
   Shippers that require time-definite one-to-three day service in the United States will continue to use BAXSaver. This service is an alternative to overnight and second-day air shipments when the delivery commitment falls within the one- to two-day delivery range.
   BAXSaver is a “mode-neutral” service that uses a combination of air and ground transport through the company’s scheduled network to meet the guaranteed on-time delivery requirements, Levy said.