UPS Capital Unveils DeliveryDefense™ Technology

The total number of digital shoppers worldwide grew by roughly one billion between 2019 and 2022, with eCommerce sales expected to continue increasing by over 10% in 2023. With rising economic uncertainty and more packages out for delivery than ever before, merchants are seeing a rise in threats to their customers’ shipping experience—notably around porch piracy and fraud. 

To support eCommerce retailers navigating this evolving landscape, InsureShield® Shipping Insurance by UPS Capital Insurance Agency, Inc. has launched DeliveryDefense™, a new predictive analytics solution that enables merchants to assess the level of delivery risk associated with addresses nationwide, empowering them to make informed decisions before shipping. This groundbreaking offering aims to help mitigate losses, increase revenue, yield better customer satisfaction, and more. 

“DeliveryDefense empowers merchants to select optimal approaches for seamless and successful deliveries, prioritizing the customer experience,” said Mark Robinson, President at UPS Capital. “By proactively identifying and addressing potential shipping issues, DeliveryDefense data ensures a smooth customer journey. Merchants can leverage alternative options, such as nearby UPS Store locations or other convenient access points, to optimize delivery outcomes.”

Drawing on the extensive data sources of UPS and leveraging proprietary data sources as well, DeliveryDefense revolutionizes the safety and reliability of deliveries for merchants. By analyzing address characteristics and historical loss information using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, the solution generates a delivery confidence score. This score indicates the level of uncertainty associated with each address, allowing merchants to gauge the likelihood of a successful delivery.

Merchants gain seamless access to this score through a user-friendly API, empowering them with greater control to choose the best option for the identified risk. This seamless process ensures a hassle-free delivery experience for customers, even before the shipping label is generated, saving valuable time and preventing potential mishaps.

Here's an example of how confidence scores support informed decision-making:

• High Scores: All shipping options are expected to result in successful deliveries.
• Average Scores: Signifies potential loss, giving the option for merchants to access shipping protection, if desired, to provide an extra layer of safeguarding against potential mishaps and further secure their bottom line.
• Low Scores:  Merchants may consider utilizing options with a stronger chain of custody, such as in-store pickup from a UPS Store or an access point of their choice, to ensure secure and successful deliveries.

Addresses identified with low confidence scores face nearly sixty-three times higher likelihood of experiencing a problem reported after delivery, compared to high confidence scores. 

Merchants can seamlessly integrate with DeliveryDefense through APIs, enhancing their existing platforms. For instance, the InsureShield® Connect API can work in conjunction with DeliveryDefense to automatically apply shipping insurance in real-time for addresses marked with average confidence scores. Similarly, UPS Capital's Ship to Access API directs shipments to alternate delivery locations when addresses receive low confidence scores.

InsureShield protection has already been testing the impact of DeliveryDefense in beta mode with a select group of retailers, including enterprise retailers like Costco and Luxottica.

Learn more about Delivery Defense solutions and get a demo.