UPS Plans for Record Holiday Deliveries of 750 Million Parcels
UPS released its delivery estimates for this year’s holiday season, and it further demonstrates how there is no slow down in eCommerce.
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- UPS expects to deliver about 750 million packages this holiday season
- Deliveries between Black Friday and New Year’s Eve are projected to be 5% higher than 2016
- 17 of 21 holiday delivery days before Christmas should exceed 30 million packages
- Investment in facilities, advanced operational and customer technologies, and 95,000 temporary hires ready the UPS network to handle nearly double normal daily volume
Sales Growth Forecasts Exceed Past Years
The National Retail Federation anticipates retail sales in November and December to increase by 3.6% to 4%, reaching upward to $682 billion in sales. This estimate surpasses the five-year historical average of 3.5% in retail sales increase during the holiday season.
Now consider that we reported on a forecast from Deloitte LLP, a business advisory firm, that estimated retail sales growth of 4% to 4.5%, all retailers ready for this season should be pretty happy about their prospects.
“Retail industry sales forecasts indicate another strong holiday season. UPS is working hand-in-hand with our customers to meet consumer demand for nearly double our normal daily residential and business-to-business deliveries.
Online and mobile commerce has transformed the retail industry, and UPS is ideally positioned to serve both our consumer and business customers during even these busiest of times.”
Kate Gutmann, UPS Chief Sales and Solutions Officer
For small business online retailers, this season is a tremendous opportunity to cash in on sales. Mobile sales will be a driving force, and while inventory purchases may be too late for some, there is plenty of time to adjust marketing and promotions.
This year UPS added standard ground Saturday delivery to much of its network, giving small business retailers an opportunity to compete better with Amazon and other large eCommerce retailers.
Are you ready to take advantage of this holiday season? Will UPS’ new Saturday delivery be part of your delivery mix? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Richard Meldner
Richard is co-founder of eSeller365. He has over 17 years of experience on eBay which includes tens of thousands of sales to buyers in over 100 countries and even has experience with eBay’s VeRO program enforcing intellectual property rights for a former employer. And for about two years Richard sold products on Amazon using Amazon FBA in the US.
To “relax” from the daily business grind, for a few weekends a year, he also works for IMSA as a professional race official.