Retailers and shipping companies have been preparing for extra packages. UPS and FedEx said they are hiring 100,000 and 70,000 seasonal workers respectively, and both say they are doing more weekend deliveries.
Still, the industry’s capacity could be short by up to 7 million packages a day between Thanksgiving and Christmas, said Satish Jindel, president of ShipMatrix, which analyzes shipping data.
Delays of a day or two won’t affect people buying gifts on Black Friday that they don’t intend to give until Dec. 25, but they could be an issue for last-minute shoppers, Jindel said.
“Don’t try to order after the 15th thinking you’ll get a better price, because the better price will be lost in extra shipping or not getting it on time,” he said.
UPS works with big retailers to make sure they know how much shipping capacity they can use during the holiday season, the company said in a statement. If retailers need more, UPS picks up the extra packages as space becomes available.
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UPS said it wants to make sure it can accommodate other customers, including smaller businesses that are also seeing more holiday sales.
FedEx, which is predicting peak season shipping volumes will be 22% higher than last year, temporarily extended FedEx Ground transit times on some routes by one day starting Nov. 2.
