After the United Parcel Service Inc or UPS said it was unable to deliver some packages by Christmas due to the huge volume, Amazon.com Inc offered its customers $20 gift cards and refunds on shipping fees, Bloomberg reported. The largest online retailer said in messages to its customers that they were able to process orders in time for holiday delivery but cited the failures in the transportation network of UPS.
In an email to Bloomberg, Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako said, "We are reviewing the performance of the delivery carriers."
UPS said the volume of air packages was more than its capacity immediately before Christmas in a service update posted in its website. UBS is the biggest package delivery company in the world. The update said, "UPS is not making pickups or deliveries on Christmas Day and will resume normally scheduled service on December 26."
Citing data published by Forrester Research last month, the report said online holiday retail sales in the US were forecasted to rise 15% to over $78 billion. A cover story which was published for Bloomberg Businessweek's subscribers on its December 23 issue said UPS predicted to ship over 132 million parcels around the world in the week before Christmas. UPS has led the holiday shipping business in the US due to its large fleet consisting of 101,000 trucks, vans, tractor trailers and motorcycles. Meanwhile, FedEx Corp, its Memphis, Tennessee-based competitor, only has a ground fleet of 32,000 vehicles. However, FedEx has more jets than UPS.
The report said both couriers announced their forecasts for the holidays. FedEx said would deliver over 85 million shipments in the first week of December while UPS said it would be delivering 129 million packages in the same period. UPS said it expected another holiday rush in the week before Christmas. The cover story said UPS had added workers, planes and ground fleet to manage the package flow.
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