UPS’s Q2 earnings call included a number of important insights on the company and the response of one of the world’s largest and most innovative companies to what remains a complex trade and shipping environment. It also brought to light a number of challenges and opportunities shippers face that our Parcel Spend Management 2.0 (PSM 2.0) technology and platform directly address. 

Regardless of whether it’s to help prepare for the peak holiday shopping season or simply to find opportunities to manage shipping and supply costs down, shippers are well served to consider what developments in UPS’s business reveal about the larger parcel shipping landscape. Now is also a great time to consider how they might impact their own efforts to lower shipping costs, optimize fulfillment efforts, and better support leadership in operations and finance.

More specifically, UPS’s earnings also confirm that shippers, especially those at small businesses and mid-market enterprises, are in many cases flying blind in efforts to manage rising shipping costs and the complexity of today’s shipping networks—all in a time when demand is often unpredictable and the market for credit is tightening. These are issues we have helped shippers solve all along by providing them with analytics, automation, and intelligence they can use to make data-driven decisions across carriers, nodes, and within the many business functions that are impacted by shipping acumen, efficiency, and costs.

Highlights From UPS Q2 2025 Earnings Call

  • Operational restrictions at UPS: Network changes, as well as changes that impact the people at the heart of those networks, such as drivers, sometimes result in delivery delays, zone realignment, and shifts in surcharges and accessorials. Reveel’s time-in-transit intelligence and carrier performance tracking capabilities enable shippers to monitor performance and respond rapidly if service levels degrade or gaps emerge.
  • Rising revenue-per-piece (RPP) and surcharges: In an environment marked by declining shipping volume, shippers may face rate increases. Our rate audit, DIM weight tracking, and contract negotiation tools ensure that shippers detect and understand the subtleties that must be considered to make smarter negotiations and cost allocations.
  • Tariff risks and the elimination of the de minimis exemption: For many companies, particularly those engaged in ecommerce, the elimination of the de minimis exemption brings with it increased tariff-related risk. The ability Reveel gives shippers to easily and intuitively analyze costs at the SKU level, our GL coding tools, and the powerful modeling and simulation capabilities within our platform let shippers analyze how tariff scenarios impact costs and how they can mitigate exposure to changing tariff policies. These capabilities are especially important for companies that need visibility into true landed costs.
  • SMG struggles and a tightening market for credit: Reveel’s PSM 2.0 empowers SMBs to gain visibility over shipping data and immediately and proactively save money with actionable insights and shipping intelligence that increases resiliency in the face of inflexible pricing and sourcing issues – all issues that are particularly relevant to companies that lack the financial resources needed to absorb extra tariff-related costs and shortfalls.
  • Decreased volume among enterprise shippers and Amazon: Decreased volume can result in greater margin pressure and cost allocation complexity, both of which can ultimately impact customers. Reveel’s parcel analytics and finance automation tools empower shippers to uncover hidden cost drivers and use the resulting intelligence to amend existing agreements with carriers for more favorable terms and conditions while reducing dependency on any one company.
  • Growth in the healthcare sector: Growing demand for UPS’s services in the healthcare sector reflects the singular importance parcel shipping performance can have not only on the efficacy of therapies and pharmaceuticals, but also on patient health outcomes. Whether it’s addressing the need for cold-chain visibility or ensuring that patients receive the medications they need when they need them, Reveel’s HIPAA-compliant PSM 2.0 gives organizations the real-time insights they need to monitor and respond to any changes in service levels or performance that impact sensitive medical shipments.

For many shippers and the organizations they serve, these are unsettling and difficult times marked by uncertainty and rapidly changing trends and guardrails. But as UPS’s own response shows, knowledge and a strategic response are key.

At Reveel, we are committed to helping our customers make the right shipping decisions regardless of what the current landscape looks like, and to deliver the peace of mind that comes with real, useful, and proven shipping intelligence. Request a demo of our parcel spend management platform here.