Despite delays caused by a record-breaking CyberMonday, FedEx closed out the holiday season with a half-percentage-point improvement over last year for an on-time delivery record of 97.8%. UPS didn’t fare as well, meeting one-, two-, and three-day guarantees only 95.5% of the time, according to ShipMatrix.
Holiday 2015’s opening week proved challenging for shippers as online Christmas shopping continued its upward trend. IBM’s Watson measured an 18% increase in CyberMonday sales as compared to last year.
“Cyber Monday was more than [the shippers] had planned for,” said Robert Persuit, director of business development for ShipMatrix. “There were a total of 1.2 billion packages delivered this year, so even if all shippers had 98% on-time deliveries, that’s still 240,000 that didn’t get delivered on time.”
Online demand had Jet.com announcing the Friday before Christmas that it couldn’t guarantee any more deliveries by December 25. UPS’s biggest customer, Amazon, meanwhile, began talks with Boeing about leasing cargo jets in a purported effort to start shipping its own goods.
