UPS Working With Retailers to Avoid Late Christmas Deliveries
UPS Inc. is working to persuade e-commerce retailers not to offer free overnight shipping Dec. 23 to avoid the delays that were seen last year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Last holiday season, the volume of last-minute air packages exceeded UPS’ capacity to process them, and the company offered refunds to some customers whose packages did not arrive by Dec. 24. UPS cleared the backlog by Dec. 27.
“You can’t just encourage everyone to say ‘Hey, just wait and ship the last day,’” David Abney, CEO of UPS, told the paper.
The company also wants retailers to hold sales in mid-December rather than the days leading up to Christmas and stagger specials geographically so items go on sale at different times around the country.
Executives at UPS told the paper they can’t guarantee they will ship anything that exceeds what retailers projected this holiday season.
UPS ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
