Online Delivery Options Have Alaska's Delivery Services Scrambling: Customer expectations lead to more, faster delivery options for even rural locales.

• Author: Mottl, Judy
• Position: TRANSPORTATION

There's a maxim when it comes to the real estate industry: location, location, location. While a home may boast a beautiful design, impressive landscaping, and plenty of room for guests, it's not going to be appealing if it's sitting on a busy highway or next to a waste treatment plant or twenty feet off the railroad tracks.

Just as location plays a critical role in a home sale or purchase, location, at least in Alaska, plays a big role in whether residents and businesses are able to send or receive packages in quick fashion--such as same-day, next-day, or even two-day timeframes.

Alaska's unique weather--specifically its months of icy roads, ferocious cold temperatures, blustery winds, and fierce snow and sleet--presents distinct challenges when it comes to shipping or receiving deliveries, whether those deliveries are fresh fruit, time-sensitive documents, medication, or basic life needs such as toilet paper.

The good news is that Alaska residents and business owners have access to a deep pool of delivery services ready and waiting to make their next expedited delivery.

Who Delivers Fast and Quick

The pool of expedited delivery options runs the gamut, including globally-known brand names such as UPS, FedEx, and the United States Postal Service (USPS). Also on the list are Alaska Airlines' Goldstreak Package Express service, a provider of same-day service, as well as third-party and local goods and package transporters such as Reliable Transfer Corporation.

Alaska Airline's Goldstreak offers package express--a "next flight available service" for packages weighing up to 150 pounds. Priority service, from its air cargo office in Anchorage, is generally a next-day delivery (depending on schedules) for items weighing above that 150-pound mark, according to a spokesperson.

The cost of using Goldstreak depends on several variables, such as the items being shipped, package dimensions, weight, and the time of year, though the service is available year-round. Goldstreak's customers are a mixed bag, according to the company, but typically the service is used for packages that are either time sensitive or perishable in nature.

For example, seafood, vegetables, and other perishable groceries are often delivered via the Priority service, as well as medicines and machinery and oil equipment parts. Customers choose a flight and drop the package at one of the company's cargo locations one hour before flight departure. On the receiving end the package can be picked up by the recipient one hour after the delivery flight arrives. Goldstreak also offers a Pet Connect travel service; pet shipments require 24-hour advance booking.

"In addition, we see more and more ecommerce shipments going to consumers around the state from online retailers," says...