This makes UPS more competitive with rival FedEx - which offers ground delivery on Saturday - and the U.S. Postal Service, with its Saturday and Sunday deliveries, allowing orders fulfilled on Saturday to arrive on Monday. Deliveries to residences are expected to account for more than half of UPS's total by 2019.

Multichannel Merchant asked Jerome Roberts, vice president of marketing for UPS, about the new service offering and its implications.

MCM: What was the business rationale for doing starting Saturday operations?

Roberts: E-commerce is a 24×7 operation and as it continues to expand, our customers are changing the way they do business. With order-to-delivery times continuing to shrink, UPS’s Saturday operations provides the choice, control and convenience customers want.

The addition of another operating day allows customers across multiple industries from healthcare to retail to ship and receive six days a week, providing an opportunity to grow revenue, turn inventory faster, utilize space more efficiently, and increase productivity.

MCM: What is the impact of Saturday ground service on UPS in terms of network, infrastructure, labor, costs, etc.?

Roberts: More than 6,000 new UPS jobs expected when operations are fully implemented by the end of 2018. UPS is launching Saturday ground operations with no additional investment in buildings, vehicles or trucks. The addition of another ground operations day more efficiently utilizes our existing delivery network and offers customers an even faster ground delivery solution.

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