ECommerce Surge Brings Good Tidings To Delivery Sector

The surge in holiday orders that comes with the peak season usually means big business for shipping and delivery companies, but this year the eCommerce spending is helping some to outperform others, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday (Nov. 22).

According to Hackett Associates, railroads, truckers and ocean carriers are nowhere close to seeing the rise of as much as 15 percent in containers arriving to ports during this time of year.

Instead, those companies that are focused on the delivery and fulfillment of online holiday shopping, such as FedEx, the U.S. Postal Service, and UPS, are expected to reap the benefits of the peak season.

“I think the low growth has taken everybody by surprise,” Maersk CEO Nils Andersen said on a recent earnings call. “At least it was below what we expected and definitely did not meet our hopes for the peak season.”

Data from the Cass Freight Index report, which measures shipping volumes across North America, showed a drop of 1.5 percent in September from a year ago and experienced a 5.3 percent decrease year-over-year in October, WSJ reported.

There was also slow growth in container and trailer volumes for both railroads and trucking companies in recent months.

On the flip side, services like UPS expect increases and are eager to capitalize on the eCommerce shopping wave. UPS anticipates that it will see its deliveries rise by 10 percent to nearly 630 million packages this holiday season.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Postal Service announced its prediction of delivering 600 million packages between Black Friday and New Year’s Eve, representing a nearly 11 percent spike from the number of packages it delivered last year.

FedEx has also confirmed plans to up the number of deliveries it makes between Black Friday and Christmas Eve by more than 317 million, or 12 percent compared to 2014.