Andrews – When Smoky Mountain Hobbies closed in December 2022, Andrews was close to losing its only brick and mortar location for UPS return drop-off service.
Nola Cooper, director of the Andrews Chamber of Commerce, worked to close that gap and provide the town an outlet for this vital service. There is still a drop-off box at Hall Memorial Park, but it only accepts packages of a certain size and is typically full.
“We decided we didn’t want to lose that service when the hobby shop closed. So we decided to take up the reins and have it be here [on Main Street downtown at the chamber office],” Cooper said. “When Smoky Mountain Hobbies closed in December we had to go through some training and some other hoops to get set up, but we were set up by February.”
However, UPS unilaterally made the decision to stop daily delivery and pickup to Andrews, Nantahala, Robbinsville and Topton as of July 1 and go to a three-days-per-week schedule of Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
The change seems to have been made at corporate headquarters, with the only confirmation received by the chamber being word of mouth, then by discussing the schedule change with the local route driver.
Cooper said the chamber goes through a third-party company in order to provide UPS service, and the chamber is not a UPS store. The closest of those is in Franklin, which has been supportive of the chamber taking up the mantle of being the focus for deliveries and pickups.
“The Franklin UPS Store contacted us to let us know that this was a corporate decision, and they had no input or had no responsibility for this schedule change,” she said. “The third-party company is on board with us, and they actually have an advocacy teams who’s been working on our behalf to try and ensure that we warrant daily delivery in Valleytown.”
Cooper said it has been beneficial because the public has a reason to visit the chamber. Then they see what the office does in promoting tourism and events in the community.
“We’re right on Main Street so we’re easy to find, and the public is finding out what we’re all about and that’s a helpful thing,” she said.
About UPS’ decision, Cooper said, “It feels to me like they’re not going to change their mind, and they just don’t understand how they’ve affected the small businesses in town because they have needs for things to arrive in a timely manner.”
Cooper is also a small business owner, and as a print broker the changes have impacted her being able to meet client’s needs.
“For instance, I’m a print broker and usually if I order signs for someone they get shipped overnight,” she said. “But if I order on a Monday and they get shipped Monday night, they’re not going to arrive until Wednesday – even though the client has paid for overnight shipping.”
Cooper also said it’s difficult to make corporate entities understand the impacts of curbing services to our area in particular because unless someone has visited the area, they can’t understand the difficulties of terrain because it’s one of “those rural things,” and these entities don’t understand how important these services are.
While there are several other ways to ship products like FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service, UPS seemingly dominates the industry, especially considering the majority of deliveries are from Amazon.
Cooper tells people to contact Amazon for their return labels because it’s necessary to travel to the Franklin UPS Store or another location to enable return by QR codes when trying to return items.
She added that the chamber provides full service for shipping needs, from bringing your own box or weighing items to printing labels and taking more than 20 packages a day.
With the holidays swiftly approaching, Cooper said the chamber is planning to hire someone to solely handle the shipping demand while she focuses on chamber business. She’s also hopeful that because of increased demand for the holiday season, that UPS will return to a daily schedule in town.
Details: UPS Customer Service, 1-800-745-5877.