FedEx will keep its partnership with the NRA.
This seems to me like one of those things that’s going to move forward with one percentage of Americans valiantly supporting them, and another percentage of Americans swearing them off. But which way will it go in FedEx’s favor? Or will it be a wash?
Poll to follow.
I guess it will cost them a little bit of money, but just in a “our revenue targets were not quite met this quarter” sort of way.
Family in Memphis tell me that Fred Smith (founder, chairman, president, and CEO) is a true conservative and will not budge on this.
Wasn’t Fedex the company that pushed to bankrupt the USPS when Bill Frist(R-Tennessee) was Senate Majority leader? The USPS was forced to prefund their pension obligations, greatly crippling it.
If so, I can see how Fedex would remain loyal to the Republicans and risk a bit of a public backlash.
I don’t blame Fedex, given the worry that NRA members would go postal.
I assume (but am open to correction) that most of FedEx’s money comes from corporate/business clients who need to express ship documents. I can’t really see those customers deciding to change carriers based on this unless it’s some gun control non-profit or something. The slice of the pie that’s affected by an angry man on the street is small enough that it won’t resonate in the profits.
Zing!
One thing the NRA has been good at is motivating their members to take action. I think the number of their supporters who will make a point of using FedEx will outpace the number who boycott them.
Most companies will decide that changing shipping providers is too much of an aggravation and will keep on doing whatever they were doing before. I think that makes for a slight net uptick in FedEx’s business.
Smith is an extreme fundamentalist. He’ll stick with his tribe.
They’ll be fine once this mostly blows over.
I also doubt it will matter, mostly because of who the primary customers of FedEx are. Companies handle shipping almost entirely by cost. And customers largely don’t have a choice in who ships stuff to them.
I applaud the other companies for taking a stand, but I don’t see this hurting FedEx, as I think there would be a long way to go before shipping companies would be boycotted.
What are you gonna do? Use DHL? HAHAhahaha… 
I think Fed Ex will see less reduction in its business retaining the partnership than dropping it. But I believe the (fairly slight) effect on all these companies, I mean ones which have or had ‘partnerships’ with the NRA, whichever side they choose, will be negative. Few people really follow through on boycotting big companies because they don’t like the company’s politics. But it’s typically more than the number of people who seek out companies because they agree with the company’s politics.
The companies which formed partnerships with the NRA thought it was straightforward affinity marketing with limited political dimension. Now that it’s become a high profile political thing they probably just wish they hadn’t done it in the first place. But that doesn’t mean putting yourself in the cross hairs of the backlash of a known extremely highly motivated minority of pro-gun rights people, by dissing the NRA now, is better than putting yourself in the cross hairs of a still unproven movement of people in favor of more gun control to a similar white hot degree by not doing so.
A big customer of FedEx is Amazon. If they stopped using them for deliveries, that may hurt.
Goin’ Postal is definitely an option if FedEx policies make you angry enough.
You know, I am not an NRA member, and probably never will be, but I have frequented many of the companies that are dropping the NRA. Not once, ever, have I been asked if I was an NRA member, or had a “checkbox” or anything indicating I would get a discount. Miltary discount? Student discount? Sure. NRA? No.
Never once have I seen something that made me go “Hey, look at these discounts! Maybe I should join the NRA!” Ironically, I am MORE intrigued about joining because I didn’t know they had benefits like this, at all. Other vendors will be more than happy to take their spot I think.
And I highly doubt they will lose many members over the discount thing. I think it will be a wash and maybe even will make some them some money. For better or for worse, this was free advertising for the NRA.
Yeah, both of them. Amazon would be shooting themselves in the foot, no pun intended.
Yep. I always try to support UPS because they are a union shop that actually pays its workers a living wage. Good luck attempting to force large companies to ship with your carrier of choice. It’s pretty much impossible and the reality is that very few people will be bothered to care about it. Maybe a few people will ship UPS instead of FedEx personally, but very few people ship personal packages with either company, not enough to make a difference anyway.
I think the insurance companies dropping them are a far bigger deal. In rural areas, where physical prowess affects quality of life, death and dismemberment insurance matters. A lot of people in those areas of the country get that insurance through their NRA memberships. An enterprising Insurance salesman could approach the Elks and Moose lodges and make some scratch in the next few months.
How’s that? Is FedEx the only shipper there is? If they can’t use fedex, they just can’t deliver packages anymore?
Not only do they have other options in UPS or the USPS, but they are also doing their own delivery service.
Amazon’s been looking to cut ties with some of their third party deliveries for quite some time, this could well be the reason to cut FedEx loose, and it’s not gonna cost Amazon anything.
Go back to Sandy Hook. It generated exactly the same kind of short-term passion as the Florida shootings–but it had no long term effect on gun laws.