by With wintry weather forecast for much of the country this week, Laurie Boswell, a New Hampshire resident, said she can sleep easy because she sent her Californian daughter’s Christmas gift in plenty of time during peak shipping season.
“I got all my Christmas orders in early, we don’t like to fail,” said Boswell, 67, who is from Franconia, New Hampshire, but spoke Tuesday from midtown Manhattan.
However, today’s procrastinators, Boswell said, who sent gifts to loved ones this week may not be so lucky.
“Regardless of the storm, you could still be in trouble,” he said. “You don’t want last-minute glitches that could ruin your vacation.”
Satish Jindel, founder and president of ShipMatrix Inc, which tracks the shipping industry and its efficiency, said carriers like Amazon, FedEx, UPS and the US Postal Service will ship a combined average of 100 million packages a day. this week before Christmas.
“There are a lot of packages moving across the country,” Jindel said.
He added that during a typical day in the fall, about 70 million packages are shipped per day.
Jindel said that this year, during its busiest season, shippers face the added hurdle of weathering Mother Nature’s wrath.
A gust of Arctic air from Canada is expected to bring “life-threatening” cold to parts of the United States in the run-up to Christmas, forecasters have warned.
A strong arctic high-pressure system stretching from western Canada to the northern Plains is expected to bring “very cold air” to the entire region, as it spreads into parts of the Pacific Northwest this week, the Weather Service said. National. As of Tuesday morning, 46 million people were under winter alerts that stretched from the northern Plains to the Ohio Valley.
Wind chill warnings and watches have been put in place in 17 states, from Washington to Texas, due to cold weather.
Jindel said the country experienced similar freezing conditions shortly before Christmas 2013. Packages arrived late or not at all, he said.
That year, freezing ice storms plunged homes and businesses from Michigan to Maine to Canada into darkness, causing tens of thousands to lose power.
“This is a reminder of what happened the last week of Christmas 2013,” Jindel said.
Shippers, however, learned to monitor the weather and work around clusters of storms by sending packages to areas that were more hospitable to reaching their final destinations, he said.
Jindel expects the packages to arrive this week by the time the carriers said they would.
However, he said late senders of gifts might have to pay a premium to get the gifts to their destinations.
“They can wait until Friday and order it overnight, but then they’ll pay $70 or $80 for a $20 gift,” Jindel said. “That’s the price of procrastination.”
According to statements from UPS, FedEx, Amazon and the US Postal Service, their workers are prepared for inclement weather.
“UPS has a full-time team of meteorologists who monitor the weather and help us create contingency plans as winter storms develop. Our drivers are trained to deliver safely, and if we are unable to deliver safely to an area, we will resume service as soon as conditions permit,” the company said.
FedEx also said it has “contingency plans in place to help keep our team members safe and lessen any service impacts.” The company encouraged customers to check its website for service-affecting weather outages.
Sam Stephenson, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement: “We are closely monitoring reports of inclement weather in the US for an ‘arrive by Christmas’ message on the product page to ensure the item arrives below the tree on 12/24”.
The US Postal Service said it plans for “several weather issues throughout the year.” The postal service also said its workers have the proper equipment to do their jobs safely. While the three companies declined to share figures on how many packages were shipped this week, the postal service said customer traffic begins to pick up the week of Dec. 5, culminating in the week of Dec. 12, which marks the “highest mailing, shipping and shipping activity”. delivery week of the season.”
Amazon has fulfilled hundreds of millions of orders this holiday season, the company said.
Veronika Bo, 29, of New York City, spoke Tuesday from a post office in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan.
Bo said she has sent holiday gifts to friends and family across the country, including California, Colorado and Florida.
He said he never worries if his packages will arrive for Christmas.
“As long as it’s postmarked before December 25, it’s fine,” Bo said. “That shows that you’re late, but you’re still thinking about them.”
