UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) expect faster last-minute deliveries in the peak of the holiday season, with the three couriers moving their expedited shipping deadlines closer to Christmas Eve.
For its 2024 year-end holiday schedule, UPS says U.S. customers using its Next-Day Air services to ship goods to their final destination by Christmas Eve can ship as late as Dec. 23—a two-day difference from the Dec. 21 deadline offered in 2023.
FedEx is going a step further by offering its same-day parcel shipping service on Christmas Eve.
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USPS is moving all four of its major domestic mail service deadlines further back, with consumers able to ship via the next- to two-day Priority Mail Express service on Dec. 21—a day later than last year. The agency’s Ground Advantage and First-Class Mail services have deadlines of Dec. 18 instead of Dec. 16, while Priority Mail can go out Dec. 19 rather than Dec. 18.
Unchanged from last year, Amazon offers same-day delivery on Christmas Eve, one-day shipping on Dec. 23 and two-day delivery on Dec. 22 for Prime members.
The weak parcel demand environment in comparison to available capacity appears to be enabling these logistics providers to handle the packages later, even as there are only 17 shipping days between Black Friday and Christmas Eve—the most compressed peak since 2019. To account for any anticipated shifts in demand, both FedEx and UPS have implemented extra “demand surcharges” across their varied shipping options that will stay in effect until late January.
According to data from logistics consultancy ShipMatrix, carriers are prepared to handle 120 million parcels per day during the peak holiday season, while demand is estimated to be just 106 million packages per day.
UPS CEO Carol Tomé said in an October earnings call that “shippers have tempered their volume expectations” for the peak holiday season, leading the company to expect a softer peak than years prior. Tomé gauged this sentiment on more than 100 customers who generate more than 85 percent of peak holiday shipping surge.
Holiday sales numbers are expected to see tepid growth, with the National Retail Federation (NRF) expecting the slowest retail sales increase since 2018 at a rate between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent over 2023. On Tuesday, the NRF unveiled that November retail sales increased just 1.4 percent from the year-ago period. However, the Sunday after Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday both took place in December, taking a chunk of total sales out of 2024 year-over-year comparisons.
Data released by Project44 this month supports the carriers’ confidence to push back its expedited delivery dates.
In November 2024, carriers’ average delivery and fulfillment time was 3.7 days—a 27 percent improvement from November 2023 and a 33 percent improvement from November 2022. According to Project44, the time tracked includes order placement, shipment readiness—including picking, packing and upstream transit—as well as transit time from the warehouse to the customer.
FedEx has also committed to more last-minute deliveries via its Ground and Home Delivery operations, with the company now committing to a Dec. 23 deadline for both depending on location. FedEx Ground could ship next-day on Dec. 21 last year, while FedEx Home Delivery had a final shipping deadline on Dec. 22.
Both companies are pushing back final deadlines for its fastest shipping service to Canada, extending them to Dec. 23. FedEx used to ship its International Next Flight goods on Dec. 22, while UPS Worldwide Express shipped Dec. 20 last year.
However, the current Canada postal workers strike could potentially throw some wrenches into the movement of goods into and within the country if the work stoppage doesn’t end closer to Christmas.
UPS and Canadian shipping company Purolator temporarily suspended shipments from some couriers as they face a backlog of deliveries amid the ongoing Canada Post strike. And the USPS asked customers to refrain from mailing items to Canada until further notice.
With major carriers out of the picture in the short term, this leaves Canadian consumers with fewer and sometime more expensive delivery options during the season.
As the labor disruptions play out north of the border, FedEx is hoping some of its recently introduced package tracking and visibility features can help improve the customer-facing experience.
Within the mobile app, the courier debuted Map View, a feature that shows customers a truck’s real-time delivery location along with the latest timestamp. FedEx also now offers a picture proof of delivery to give consumers the exact location of where their shipment was left, and can also show a picture of a door tag in the event of a missed delivery.
