The Beginning of UPS

From an early age, through his work and as he walked the streets, Jim became familiar with the city’s bustle and the growing needs of its residents—needs that someone had to meet.

At 19, with help from his friend Claude Ryan, who was a year younger, Jim decided to start his own company delivering messages and packages on the 28th

of August 1907. With Claude as his partner, and after securing a $100 loan (equivalent to about $2,500 in 2014) from the uncle of

his partner Claude, who owned a hotel and agreed to rent them a basement office with a telephone for $20 a month. The space was cramped,

barely large enough for a single desk. They named the company the American Messenger Company.

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خبرة مبكرة

Despite his relatively young age, Jim was an entrepreneur. He and his partner had previously worked for several telegraph message delivery companies in the city, so he enlisted

his younger brother George and their young friends to work as messenger boys. They made deliveries on foot and on two bicycles,

one owned by Jim and the other by his partner, Claude. Jim’s business plan was simple: provide excellent service at the lowest possible cost, 24

hours a day, 7 days a week. Their commitment to this vision and management philosophy was exceptionally strong. The workers slept in the small office,

beside the telephone, so that whenever it rang, someone who knew how to answer customers’ questions could pick it up. Then a boy would set off to collect the message and deliver it to its intended recipient.

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As for marketing, they put up paper signs bearing the company slogan: “The best service at the lowest prices,” or

“Best Service at Lowest Prices”—and this was a reality, not marketing lies or advertising myths. Jim made sure that calls were answered

with the utmost courtesy and honesty. Employees wouldn’t say, “We’ll get your message to you quickly,” but would give a specific estimate, such as within 12 minutes—and then deliver on it. This

helped the company quickly build a strong reputation for keeping its promises and maintaining the quality of its services. All employees also wore uniforms, giving the impression that it was a company you could rely on

and trust.

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What It Was Like at the Time

An extremely important point needs to be explained here. In 1907, Seattle had relatively few telephone lines and was served by two telephone companies. They had one drawback

in common: it was impossible to call from one company’s network to the other. This meant that if you subscribed to the first company and wanted to call a number on the second company’s network, you had to

to find another phone connected to the company, or use the traditional solution: write the message on paper, then send it to the person you want to contact with a messenger boy

Messenger. Many homes didn’t have phones, either, so the usual way to communicate was by handwritten letters, carried back and forth by boys who ran,

or rode their bicycles—either pedal-powered or motorized.

On top of that, the U.S. Postal Service had not yet introduced its services in the city. This remained the case for six years after the company was founded. In fact, the U.S. Postal Service

relied on delivery companies to serve Seattle, and it also worked with Jim’s company. Cars were not as widespread at the time

as they are today. When American shoppers went to large stores to buy what they needed, it was difficult to carry all their purchases by hand, so they left them

for those stores, delivering their goods to customers’ homes. The stores either delivered purchases using horse-drawn carts, which were slow, or relied on delivery services

from delivery companies, which were relatively faster.

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Expansion, Mergers, and Growing Reach

At first, the company served only the city limits of Seattle. After receiving letters, it began delivering goods, parcels, bags, hats, and even food trays

from hotels. In 1911, the company was able to buy its first delivery motorcycle. By Christmas 1912, it employed 100 people,

had opened a second office near the city’s main shopping district, and the U.S. Postal Service had come to rely entirely on the company to deliver all the city’s mail,

making it the company’s largest customer. Gradually, the two partners began to realize that the future lay in delivering goods and parcels for stores—not just letters—an insight

This would later prove fruitful.

In 1913, the startup merged with another company in the city, and the new company was named Merchants’ Parcel Delivery, or

Merchants’ Delivery Service. Jim became president of the new company. The new name reflected its direction: focusing on merchants and serving them. The merger was successful, and

monthly revenue afterward exceeded $2,000, enabling the company to buy its first motor vehicle: a black Ford Model T fitted with a small trailer for carrying

goods. The merger also increased the number of daily delivery requests by bringing the two companies’ customers together.

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Machines Increase Profitability

Using motor vehicles—alongside runners and bicycle couriers—clearly helped the company provide excellent service, which in turn brought more

The business grew to the point that, by 1915, the company had a fleet of four steam-powered cars, five motorcycles, and 20 runners. It also began

consolidating shipments so they could be sent together, helping to lower costs and increase profits.

In 1916, the company agreed to bring on a co-founder, Charlie Soderstrom, an expert in steam-powered cars. However,

Charlie also chose an official color for the company: light brown, which it still uses today. After this expert

partner joined, President Jim began persuading major retail stores to do away with their own shipping departments and fleets and rely on his company’s services. Jim

bought their used delivery cars and carts and added them to his company’s fleet to help convince them—and succeeded.

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The Name “UPS” Is First Used

After getting its house in order internally, the company was ready to expand outward. By 1919, it had opened its first branch outside its home city of Seattle, in

Oakland, California. The company’s name changed once again to United Parcel Service, reflecting its transformation into a company with a

broader, wider reach. The word “United” in the name meant that the company served all cities, not just one. It also meant the company no longer shipped

one package at a time; instead, it gathered multiple shipments and sent them together.

The word “Service” wasn’t included to boast or because no better word was available. It reflected what the company truly did: provide shipping

services. Those services built UPS and remain key to its continued success. The new name also reaffirmed that UPS

It served both the general public and businesses, much like the U.S. Postal Service—which was now its competitor. The company began accepting shipments with payment

for the goods and shipping costs due on delivery, and offered businesses weekly billing rather than charging for each shipment. In its ongoing race to innovate, the company began in 1924 to

use assembly lines—a concept inspired by Ford’s car factories—to organize the movement of parcels and shipments from pickup to delivery trucks.

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A temporary setback doesn’t derail progress.

In 1929, UPS began delivering by air, partnering with local airlines to carry its parcels and shipments. However, just

two years later, the consequences of the 1929 U.S. stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed forced the company to discontinue this new service.

This did not halt the company’s expansion plans. It began moving east, relocating its headquarters to New York and starting operations there. After that

The company continued acquiring and integrating other delivery and shipping companies, and began taking responsibility for shipping goods and delivering them to shoppers at retail stores,

even as World War II forced shoppers to cut back on purchases and carry them home themselves to save money..

After World War II ended, many Americans began buying their own cars, making them less reliant on services that shipped their purchases

from stores to their homes. This was reflected in a sharp drop in shipping orders from the public, forcing UPS to look for new revenue streams

to make up for the decline in this long-standing source of income. To do so, the company once again turned to air freight and began promising

to deliver any package or shipment within just two days anywhere in the United States where it operated. After 30 years of legal battles, it obtained

The company had approvals from all local government agencies, enabling it to deliver any package to anywhere in the United States—regardless of

its location, within just two days.

In 1975, UPS began expanding internationally, opening its first branch in Toronto, Canada, followed the next year by one in Germany, and then in other countries across

Europe and South America. In 1989, through its acquisition of a British company, UPS extended its services to the Middle East, Africa, and West Asia. The decade of

the 1980s saw a significant increase in demand for shipping and express delivery services, so the company made a commitment to deliver within two days in the United States and

six other European countries, thanks to its air cargo fleet—particularly after receiving a U.S. license in 1988 to establish and operate it for the purpose of

Air freight only.

Today, this fleet ranks eighth in the world by size and number (237 jet aircraft at the end of 2013), helping deliver parcels to more than 220 countries,

and handles more than 15 million shipments a day.

It all started with two bicycles and a $100 loan…