It's the most volume-filled time of the year

Sometime this week, UPS, FedEx and the United States Postal Service will likely reach an all-time high for the most packages shipped in one day. FedEx is predicting that 16 million packages will ship today alone (it is Monday, December 12 as I write this).

In an interview with CNN, Chuck Vookies, a senior station manager at the FedEx facility in Marietta, Ga. said that today’s volumes is higher than last year and about 30 percent more than a normal day’s volume. He attributed the increase to more online shopping.

During the last holiday season, higher volumes led to many packages shipped by the three services not reaching their destinations in the time promised. This led them to take steps to assure that their systems can now handle added capacities. Few employees are allowed vacation time between now and Christmas. More trucks were added to their networks and extra workers brought in to sorting centers as well.

We will see yet if these steps fix the volume crunch. All three services are confident they will shine this year.

Another step that both FedEx and UPS have taken to address their capacities is a plan to begin dimensional-weight pricing on small parcels. That won’t affect this year’s volume, but it is still essential to understand if you are a shipper. I wrote an extensive explanation of dim-weight pricing in a story in DC Velocity that appears in this month’s issue:

http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20141117-how-to-avoid-a-dim-future/

The article explains how you might be able to keep from seeing huge boosts in small package shipment costs that will now fall under dim weight pricing.

The reason for the change is that a lot of the volume that UPS and FedEx ships is air – packages that are much too big for their contents. These packages, which contain a lot of empty space, have until now taken a lot of the cube capacity from airplanes and trucks. Starting in January, customers will now pay a premium for not right-sizing their shipments with the correct amount of packaging.

By the way, if you are doing some last minute shipping and still want your packages to arrive by Christmas Eve, FedEx recommends you ship ground packages by this Friday, December 17. The company will accept next day packages by December 23 and still get them there by December 24. At least that is the plan.

I wish you all a very happy holiday season.