International courier gearing up for record festive season

Part of this high expectation has been put down to the fact it has just launched its SmartPost service for domestic customers. This service has been designed for online retailers who ship a high volume of goods to residential addresses.

Overall, FedEx has estimated that 260 million packages are likely to be shipped during the festive period, with an increase of 12 per cent on last year’s figures.

In addition to this, the company fully expects the 12th of December to be its busiest ever, with a remarkable 17 million packages being delivered. This is not so much of a surprise as its busiest day has consistently been beaten each December ever since 2005.

To cope with this increased demand, 20,000 people are expected to be taken on for this busy period.

The influence of e-commerce sites has been highlighted as one of the main factors which have ensured such consistent growth, according to chief executive Frederick W Smith, who explained:

"As e-commerce continues to grow and demand increases with more customers shopping and conducting their business online, FedEx SmartPost is poised to handle the increase in shipments."