UPS and FedEx expect up to 17% increase in parcels this Christmas

UPS is expecting to process an estimated 700 million parcels this Christmas season, a record-breaking 17% increase compared to last year. FedEx is also expecting an increase of 10%.

Patrick Fitzgerald, FedEx’s senior vice president of integrated marketing and communications, has said that Mondays from this week until December 19th will be some of the busiest days in FedEx’s history as the company deals with a surge in pick-ups from over the weekend and the end of the week before.

Activity is boosted by the demands of retailers who need to fulfil orders placed online over the weekend and then require their inventories to be replenished at the start of the new week.

UPS has hired 95,000 temporary seasonal workers to cope with the demand, while FedEx has brought in another 50,000.

In recent years, most notably in 2013, UPS and FedEx both struggled to cope with the demands of last-minute ecommerce, leading to delays and late parcel deliveries.

However, the situation has improved as the companies have refined their staff requirements and made changes to sorting facilities to cope with large items that don’t fit in normal scanners.

Ecommerce is expected to rise to $94.7 billion in sales this year, according to eMarketer.

(Source: Crain’s Detroit Business)