Walmart, it seems, has been the victim of its own success with online sales. According to reports Wednesday, Walmart has disclosed that its massive uptick in online sales has notably slowed things down within its delivery network.
“The week of Thanksgiving is an incredibly busy time for all of retail. With massive volume going through our system, there were some orders that took extra time, much like other major eCommerce sites,” Walmart spokeswoman Danit Marquardt said of the week of Thanksgiving.
“A vast majority of orders are shipping on time now,” she added.
The big backlog is an annual issue and demonstrates the challenges UPS, FedEx and the USPS face during the high volume holiday months — particularly in the era of eCommerce.
“This shows they’ve got more volume and they are not hitting some delivery windows, but it is not going to affect anyone’s Christmas,” said Satish Jindel, President of ShipMatrix, Inc, which analyzes shipping data.
As for the delivery services, FedEx seems to have confirmed the Walmart delivery slow down, but offered no official comment on it or its effect on them.
“The FedEx networks are performing as designed,” the spokesman, Glen Brandow, said. FedEx said it expected to deliver 380-400 million packages globally during the peak shipping season.
UPS declined to comment. It has of late, however, added new surcharges to its delivery — which commentators think is probably a reaction to eCommerce.
Both package delivery services are expected to have any order backlog cleared by the end of the week.
Walmart is the world’s largest retailer by sales and offers free two-day shipping on millions of items when the order size is over $35. Walmart reported online sales surged 50 percent in the last quarter.
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