One might think that after years of online shopping growing in popularity that major shipping carriers would finally be prepared for the Big Show, also known as the holiday season. And yet here we are again, heading into crunch time, and UPS and FedEx are having trouble keeping up with all those packages.
Though the shipping companies expected a lot of online orders as usual, they weren’t expecting quite this many, reports The Wall Street Journal. UPS had been expecting to handle a record of more than 700 million packages, a 14% increase from last year, while FedEx predicted a 10% bump.
To cope with the onslaught, UPS has relocated hundreds of employees from its headquarters and other corporate offices to pitch in at hubs that are overwhelmed with record demand, a person familiar with the matter told the WSJ.
Before the holiday season even started, both UPS and FedEx beefed up their seasonal staff and tried to prepare by extending some delivery windows, temporarily dropping delivery guarantees and refunds for some weeks, and stopped promising to deliver express packages by a certain time.
That didn’t help much, as analysts say on-time delivery rates for both carriers were down a bit in the weeks after Thanksgiving, compared to their average rates for the rest of the year: on-time delivery rates for UPS Ground fell to 96.3% last week, while FedEx Ground sank to 96.9%.
source: UPS, FedEx Already Struggling Under Avalanche Of Holiday Deliveries
FDX stock $197.92 a share and UPS stock price $117.23 a share…….what’s not to love. if you took all your postal OT and put it into UPS/FDX stock the last 25 years at 100 shares each every year………you would be sitting pretty. but hey you can always look at that plastic po logo coffee mug you got for giving sales leads to the schmucks in the back office when you were a carrier lol. fly me to the moon……….!
USPS is ready and we can do the job – we are the final stop for all delivery – we are willing and we are ready to serve!
UPS and Fed ex customers pay a lot more and get a lot less. People who use the mail save money and yes once and awhile have a horror story but when you look at the big picture; cheaper, insured, tracking and better on time delivery, the United Stares Post Office is the better way to go. Hell, the post office is already delivering 30 to 40% of UPS’s and Fedex’s packages. And they pick up most of both’s returns. Why pay their prices?
Go get ’em Fred!
Of course the USPS is so much better equipped to handle this. No room in our office, and not enough room in our LLV’s. And of course Rolando will spin how much $ we made this quarter, even though carriers are out until 8:00 p.m. or later since we can’t hire enough CCA’s to work for $15/hr, 7 days/week and no benefits. Anybody think we will be rewarded in our contract for the excessive parcel volume that we have endured this month? Yeah sure…… another 1% or so for our efforts.