UPS, FedEx Ask Retailers To Limit Last-Minute Shipment: Reports

(RTTNews) - Seeking to avoid the issues arising from undelivered packages ahead of Christmas, package delivery giants United Parcel Service Inc (UPS) and FedEx Corp (FDX) have in recent days limited air express deliveries, the Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.

Attractive discounts and promise of free delivery by retailers have led to a last-minute surge in consumer demand, and this has forced sellers to breach agreed-upon delivery limits negotiated with those like UPS and FedEx.

Last year was a sour holiday period for UPS and FedEx as shoppers complained of undelivered packages in the days running up to Christmas; it was estimated about 2 million express packages did not arrive in time.

But this year, UPS and FedEx, apart from improving their logistics infrastructure and delivery staffing, have asked retailers not to exceed the volume commitments in the final days before Christmas.

While last year, bad weather and increased deliveries put pressure on UPS, this time around, both UPS and FedEx have urged retailers to plan their volume commitments so that customers will not be disappointed.

In fact, Monday was the busiest day of the season for UPS, with over 34 million packages delivered, while last Monday was the busiest for FedEx, which delivered about 23 million packages.

Both UPS and FedEx have also boosted the number of seasonal workers. UPS increased its seasonal hires by 11 percent from last year. and has spent about $500 million on its systems and processes.

Such measures appears to have a benign impact on deliveries this year. According to parcel delivery analyst ShipMatrix, FedEx deliveries have been on on time 96 percent of the time, up from 90 percent last year. UPS deliveries have been on time 95 percent of the time, up from 92 percent a year ago.