Our Parcel Forum Recap - Orlando

Five Observations from Cirrus Global on a Parcel Market Being Rebuilt

The most important takeaway from Parcel Forum 2026 was not simply that shippers have more carrier choices.

The larger change is that the U.S. parcel market is being unbundled and reassembled. Demand, inventory, fulfillment, middle-mile transportation, final-mile delivery, technology and pricing no longer need to come from the same provider.

Across the conference sessions and industry conversations, five observations stood out.

1. The traditional parcel oligopoly has structurally fractured

The change in market structure is no longer theoretical. ShipMatrix figures presented during the conference estimated that the U.S. parcel market handled approximately 23.9 billion parcels in 2025. Amazon delivered roughly 6.7 billion, making it larger than UPS, FedEx or the U.S. Postal Service individually. Alternative carriers handled approximately 2.6 billion parcels, or nearly 11% of the market.

Meanwhile, the combined share of UPS, FedEx and USPS has reportedly fallen from approximately 85% before the pandemic to roughly 61% in 2025. Tusk Logistics presented a similar directional picture, citing approximately 33% compound annual growth for alternative carriers over four years while the legacy parcel carriers contracted by 2.4%.

These figures should be understood in the context in which they were presented, but the broader conclusion is difficult to dispute: the U.S. parcel market is no longer principally a choice between two national commercial carriers with USPS as a supplement.

Amazon, super-regionals, emerging last-mile networks and specialized carriers now represent durable parts of the market. The next phase will determine which of those networks can turn rapid volume growth into sustainable economics.

2. UPS and FedEx are managing yield, not pursuing every package

Much of the discussion around annual carrier increases still focuses on the headline general rate increase. That number is becoming less useful as a measure of what shippers will actually experience. The 2027 rate forecast presented at Parcel Forum predicted another 5.9% headline increase. But the more important observations concerned where the increases are likely to land: lightweight residential packages, minimum charges, dimensional rules, fuel tables, demand surcharges, delivery-area classifications and additional-handling definitions.

These are not random pricing adjustments. They are part of a deliberate effort to improve the yield and operating profile of each package entering the network. UPS and FedEx increasingly have the data to understand account-level and package-level profitability, and their commercial incentives are aligning around margin rather than undifferentiated volume growth. That means parcel inflation is not solely the result of general inflation or temporary capacity constraints. It also reflects structural product and network redesign. A multiyear parcel agreement can begin losing value within months as carriers change surcharge tables and operating definitions outside the traditional annual pricing cycle.

For the market, this creates room for competitors willing to accept traffic that the national carriers no longer want at historical economics. It does not guarantee that every alternative carrier can handle that volume profitably.

3. Carrier diversification is becoming a network-design discipline

Adding another carrier is relatively easy. Building a genuinely diversified parcel network is much harder. Several sessions made the same point from different perspectives: carrier-level averages can hide the economics and service performance that matter. The relevant unit of analysis may be a shipment, ZIP cluster, lane, induction point or individual carrier hub.

Chris Cashin emphasized that a regional carrier can appear less expensive on selected lanes while destroying value elsewhere if the diverted volume causes a shipper to lose an incumbent carrier’s discount tier. Tusk argued that individual hubs within the same carrier network can perform very differently. OnTrac CEO Mike Brown warned that giving a carrier only a thin residual slice of volume may prevent the carrier and shipper from finding better network economics together.

The implication is that diversification should not mean dividing volume broadly among a growing list of carriers. It should mean deliberately assigning the right packages to the right networks while accounting for total landed cost, service consistency, incumbent contract effects and exception-management requirements.

The strategic question is no longer simply, “Which carrier should we use?” It is, “How should this shipment move through the available network?”

4. Middle-mile orchestration may be the next important competitive layer

The growth of alternative final-mile carriers creates another question: how does a shipper connect inventory with multiple regional delivery networks without recreating a national parcel network from the ground up? The emerging answer is a combination of truckload zone-skipping, air injection and shared technology.

Tusk described shippers injecting volume into carrier hubs using either 53-foot trailers or contracted air capacity. OnTrac discussed air transportation as an “air truck” that could connect selected markets at economics potentially approaching truck linehaul. OnTrac also sees air as a recovery option when a trailer misses its planned movement and as a possible component of a future returns product.

This is strategically important. An alternative carrier does not need to own an integrated airline, nationwide hubs and every final-mile route to offer a broader product. A national service can be assembled from regional delivery density, contracted middle-mile capacity and an orchestration layer that manages routing and exceptions.

That does not make air economical for every parcel or every lane. It does suggest that the boundary between parcel delivery, air cargo and technology platforms will continue to blur.

5. Amazon is commercializing logistics as a portfolio of modular services

Amazon’s Supply Chain Services presence at Parcel Forum reinforced that it should not be viewed only as another parcel carrier. Amazon is increasingly offering separate products for inventory management, fulfillment, transportation and delivery. Multi-Channel Fulfillment is designed for merchants that place inventory inside Amazon’s network and want Amazon to fulfill orders originating on other channels. It appears particularly compelling for Amazon-centric brands with one- or two-unit consumer orders, rapid delivery requirements and volatile demand.

Amazon Shipping addresses a different customer: a merchant that retains control of fulfillment but wants Amazon to provide the parcel movement. Other Amazon Supply Chain Services extend farther upstream into freight, warehousing and inventory positioning.

Each product has limitations. Multi-Channel Fulfillment’s per-unit economics can become unattractive for larger multi-unit orders, while Amazon Shipping is still developing the service coverage and transcontinental speed expected from the established national carriers.

But the strategic direction is clear. Amazon is commercializing individual layers of an integrated supply chain and allowing customers to buy the components they need. Because Amazon also controls significant consumer demand, marketplace activity and inventory placement, it can monetize its network in combinations that a traditional parcel carrier cannot easily reproduce.

The larger conclusion

Parcel competition is shifting from ownership of a single end-to-end network to orchestration across multiple networks. The strongest competitors may not be the companies that own every asset. They may be the companies that control demand, build density, understand package-level economics and connect fulfillment, middle mile and final mile with the least friction.

That is a more consequential shift than another annual rate increase or another carrier entering a new ZIP code. It represents a redefinition of what a parcel network is—and who can build one.

Note: Selected figures and forward-looking statements above were presented by conference speakers or discussed in industry conversations. They should be treated as attributed market estimates, forecasts or management disclosures rather than audited results by Cirrus Global Advisors.