USPS, Other Carriers Rushing To Deliver Millions Of Holiday Gifts

Christmas is less than 72 hours away and last-minute shoppers aren’t the only ones feeling the heat.

FedEx, meanwhile, estimates that in the Thanksgiving-to-New Year’s window, it will deliver more than 317 million packages, a 12 percent increase over last year.

According to customer analytics firm StellaService, Dec. 21 is the most popular cutoff date again this year for getting your order in, one day later than last year when retailers had eased back after 2013’s debacle when UPS had a horrendous 83% on-time delivery rate and FedEx was hardly better with a 90% success rate.

Online sales represent 10% of the overall sales at the retail level, said Forrester.

While FedEx doesn’t have final numbers yet, spokesperson Gretchen Mathis said FedEx picked up a record 26 million packages on December 14, resulting in the busiest day in the company’s history.

“Using rental vehicles is a cost-effective way of temporarily expanding our delivery fleet to address the increased package volume around the holidays”, UPS spokeswoman Kim Krebs said.

In order for packages to be delivered by Christmas, the Postal Service says Priority Mail must be shipped on Monday.

The time of the year has proved to be hard for both companies in the past, but more so for UPS.

Thanks to online sales, FedEx and UPS have a combined 947 million packages to deliver between Black Friday and Christmas Eve – up 8 percent from last holiday season’s forecasts. Between the slower shipping times and sales exceeding retailers’ expectations, it seems the gamble on gifts making it under the tree by next weekend starts now.

Amazon’s stock was down about 0.4% on the stock market today.

The U.S. postal service will have its share of deliveries, expecting to deliver 15.5 billion cards, letters, packages, and more over the holidays.

At first glance, Kentucky doesn’t seem like the epicenter of holiday shipping.

FedEx hired 50,000 seasonal workers and UPS added about 95,000.

The holiday clock is ticking, but shoppers can still put off their gift buying a little bit longer before Santa Claus arrives.

Local post offices may post revised hours, so check ahead if you know you’ll be running out of time. Two-day shipping is free with Amazon’s Prime service. Walton said they’ve been doing Sunday deliveries since the end of November, and they’ll even be delivering on Christmas day in Knoxville. Customers can order as late as 6 p.m. for in-store pick up on December 23 but online delivery orders need to be placed by December 22 for rush deliveries.

According to FedEx, packages will be delivered on Christmas Eve, including Express, Ground, Custom Critical, and FedEx Home Delivery, but there will be no freight deliveries.