Kinko's Gets FedEx to Deliver Web Customers
|
A new co-branded site will power the copy-shop chain's sprint to the Net, while FedEx adds document printing to its online menu
|
 |
WEB POINTERS
To visit the sites mentioned in the story, click here:
Kinkos.com
FedEx
|
In a move that could provide a much-needed push for its Internet strategy, Kinko's this week signed an alliance with FedEx that will promote the copy-shop chain's Web services to millions of FedEx customers. Within the next two months, Kinko's recently introduced Web service, Print to Kinko's, will be renamed and relaunched as a new site co-branded with FedEx.
For FedEx, the agreement offers a way for the overnight-delivery giant to add document printing to its menu of online services. In addition to ordering package pickups and tracking packages online, FedEx customers will be able to upload digital files to the site, have them printed at Kinko's, and delivered overnight -- or in some markets, on the same day -- by Kinko's-contracted couriers. "We did a rigorous evaluation and decided Kinko's offered the best technology, reach, and trust in the market," says David Roussain, vice-president for electronic commerce at FedEx. "This gives our customers tremendous control of their packages, right from their desktops."
ADDED EXPOSURE. But it could be even more of a coup for Kinko's. It already has a relationship with FedEx -- there are about 50 FedEx counters located in Kinko's branches across the country, with 100 more planned over the next year. But this agreement will provide Kinko's with much-needed exposure on the Net. Despite a multimillion-dollar investment in technology, Kinko's has been slow to provide services that several pure-play document-delivery sites started offering months ago, namely online document-creation capabilities, online ordering, and same-day delivery.
Kinko's CEO Joseph Hardin hopes FedEx' name value will help lure customers toward the company's new Web offering. Kinko's will be the exclusive document-creation provider on FedEx' site, which receives 5.5 million page views per day. "The strength of our two brands will allow us to leapfrog the other online-document providers," Hardin says. On the Net, where speed is everything, FedEx just might provide the boost Hardin needs to deliver on that promise.
Weintraub covers technology for Business Week from Los Angeles
|
|
