Jenny Robertson, senior vice president of integrated marketing and communications at FedEx, joined Cheddar News to discuss preparations for holiday shopping and shipping.

FedEx Prepares for the Holiday Season

as we near the peak holiday shipping season. Companies like Fedex are shoring up their logistics and operations to ensure on time accurate deliveries for billions of packages and parcels. Fedex ramping up its operations to seven days a week deploying its fleet of electric delivery vans and expanding its photo proof of delivery services. I'm joined now by jenny Robertson, senior vice president of integrated marketing and communications at Fedex jenny, thanks for coming on the show and tell me more about how Fedex is preparing for the rush of deliveries this holiday season. Hi Kristen, thank you so much for having me and we are so excited because next week really kicks off the biggest and best time of the year for us every year and that's our peak season. We have 700,000 team members around the world who are ready to deliver for our customers and we are introducing a lot of enhancements and new solutions for our customers as well. Uh, photo proof of delivery is one you just mentioned, we are the only carrier now that for every residential delivery that doesn't require a signature, we will take a picture of it just to give you that peace of mind that it was delivered to the right doorstep. We also have the E. V. S that you mentioned, we have 100 and 50 out on the roads today that are just gonna help make sure that those deliveries are having a less of an impact on the environment than otherwise. And then I have to also just note that speed matters during the holidays and year round but people really want to get their goods as fast as poss. We're faster to more locations in our top competitor. And we also are delivering on Sundays and Sundays matter during the holiday season. There's a lot of fruit baskets maybe or other perishables and you want to make sure that every day counts and that's why we're really proud to be able to deliver on Sundays and operate seven days a week jenny, What are your overall projections for this holiday season? Just in terms of the amount of material that we will see shipped across the country. You know, we are expecting a more moderate peak season than in past years. You know, we've had two very unusual years before us, 2020 of course we called it the ship python, everyone was, it was the first holiday season of the pandemic and everyone was really buying online and doing more shipping than ever. Last year had all the supply chain challenges that you've seen and that created some unique challenges for peak and for the volumes this year, you know, we're seeing inflation is having an impact and we are predicting a much more moderate peak season, but there will still be a peak, you know, 20% of of all retail is e commerce, more than 20% has been until now. This year we're seeing that dip a little bit below 20% of all retail being e commerce, but it is still a high number and we are seeing a peak season. How can users take advantage of some of your technology and offering jenny like the delivery manager app to their advantage. This very busy holiday period. Yeah. Fedex delivery manager is my favorite app to use because if you're getting a package delivered to your home and you're not gonna be there, you wanna avoid porch pirates or maybe you don't want your kids to see what's on the porch when they get home. And you can just use that app. You can quickly redirect the delivery to one of the retail locations, whether it's a Fedex office or a or a dollar general or an office depot or something. One of our retail partners. Uh, you can have it sent there and then pick it up when it's convenient for you. You can also just manage and track your shipments in that app and it's just a really great tool to use. And I do want to ask you more about bright drop. I know the company Fedex that you work at has bought thousands of these electric delivery vans from general motors which will aid in some of the deliveries. I think that we anticipate this holiday season as you mentioned Jennie and so how will we see the deployment of that of course these next few months and into the next few years. Yeah, we are starting to roll them out. We have 150 on the road today and we are working quickly with local communities and municipalities to help build out the infrastructure needed to continue rolling out more E. V vehicles. We have a great relationship with Bright drop and this is an important part of our goal to be carbon neutral by 2040 and as we are replacing vehicles in our fleet, we are going to continue replacing them with electric vehicles, electric vehicles. I know so important to, to the overall sustainability efforts that we see at companies jenny um, is the bright drop vehicle integration part of Fedex's own sustainability goals. It absolutely is, it's an important part. It's one part, but it's a critical part with what we do in delivering packages, the vehicles that were using every day. We want them to be um, as as close to zero emission as possible. And so that really plays a big role in how we're gonna get to carbon neutrality by 2040. What your consumers expect jenny, are you hoping for a 100% on time delivery rate this holiday season or should people plan ahead? We are always hoping for 100% on time and this, you know, we are really excited about this season. We are predicting outstanding service levels. We've already seen our, our ground service levels back at the pre pandemic levels and our team members are ready to go. They're very proud of what they do and we are predicting some outstanding service. Mhm In terms of trends that you're starting to see emerge, jenny are their popular days, busier days than others or even almost a deadline and cut off that if you do want to send gifts before the actual holiday, like christmas for instance, when you need to ship that package by. So the trends that we're seeing first of all from a day perspective cyber monday is going to be our busiest day of the season, black friday and all the deals that you see throughout the weekend and then on cyber monday really create that moment in time when we see the highest volumes of the season. And so we're still predicting that, but every monday of the peak season is our busiest day because people do a lot of their online shopping over the weekend and so that's when we're doing a lot of pickups is on monday when we're fulfilling those orders. So those are critically important. We do always advise that you give, you know, plenty of time for weather delays or anything unexpected that could occur and you know, we've got our prophetic ground, you know, you want to deliver uh, you want to ship your package really by december 13th 14th or 15th really in that timeframe, if you're a procrastinator Fedex Express is always there for you and you can, if you deliver it by or ship it by deliver by december 23rd, we can have it there in time for the holidays.