A driver with FedEx carries a package away from a van, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020, in Seattle. Store are warning online shoppers that if holiday purchases aren't made soon, they may not be delivered in time for Christmas. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
As the holiday shopping season heated up this month, UPS imposed shipping restrictions on major retailers such as Macy's, Gap, Nike, and L.L. Bean. The move signaled that the crush of holiday e-commerce orders was putting overworked delivery networks to the test.
Competing shipping carrier FedEx, meanwhile, has announced shipping surcharges and the acquisition of ShopRunner, an e-commerce platform and subscription service that offers two-day delivery from select retailers.
As for shipping restrictions, FedEx has not confirmed any specific limits on retailers.
"In some cases, volume has significantly exceeded customer projections," Bonny Harrison, director of global media for FedEx, wrote to Cheddar in an email. "We know how important it is to our customers that their packages are delivered on time, and we remain committed to work with them on ways to leverage our network flexibility."
The shipping carrier has hired 70,000 seasonal workers, moved to seven-day operations, and accelerated Sunday delivery capabilities to keep up with the pandemic-fueled demand.
"We project that peak shipping volumes will be up 22 percent year-over-year and have been preparing for the influx of packages for months in advance of an unprecedented holiday season," Harrison wrote.
In the meantime, FedEx is working with retailers and consumers to help reduce pressure on the delivery network.
The company's Buy Online Pickup in Store (BOPIS) network offers small and medium-sized merchants without a brick-and-mortar storefront a physical location for their customers to pick up online orders.
Harrison noted that the last day to ship through FedEx Ground before Christmas is Tuesday, December 15. She also advised customers to sign up for FedEx Delivery Manager to help them track packages or redirect them to one of 60,000 retail pick-up locations. These are located at retailers such as Walgreens, Dollar General, Kroger, and Albertsons.
In this extraordinary year, she added that consumers might want to be more proactive in finishing up their holiday gift-buying.
"Don’t wait until the last minute to ship your holiday gifts," Harrison wrote.
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
