FedEx has announced its general rate increases for 2019, bumping up its ground, express and home delivery services by an average of 4.9% as of Jan. 7, while also adding some holiday season surcharges and increasing others next year. Rival UPS has yet to announce its 2019 rates.
UPS has put in place tools and processes to handle an expected peak season volume of 800,000 packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas, up from 750,000 last year, announcing price increases in the form of over-max and special handling charges to offset the investments.
While the majority of UPS workers represented by the Teamsters union voted against a new contract, negotiations will continue as turnout was low and the no votes didn’t meet the threshold for killing the deal.
As it battles back against numerous media reports of working conditions in its fulfillment and sortation centers, Amazon has a new PR battle on its hands – a report that it has given workers raises of just 25 to 55 cents an hour, according to the Washington Post.
Consumers expect articulate customer reps—online and in person—well-versed in your products and services. This only escalates during the holidays. Thus call centers are pressed to perform at year-end. Here’s a laundry list of suggestions and some telling Q&As to help you determine what success looks like during peak season.
For many companies, peak season hiring is an absolute necessity. The quality and the number of hourly workers can mean success or failure in fulfillment and for your company’s service level and profitability. In many businesses, hiring decisions are underway. These 12 considerations will help you succeed at this annual exercise.
By now your peak holiday season planning is well underway. If you’re behind schedule, there’s still time to implement improvements but you need to be prudent and not over-commit. Here are 13 critical considerations for improving your peak operations and fulfillment processes.
Another peak holiday season is in the books and ecommerce and operations professionals are evaluating how well their fulfillment processes performed during the most challenging and important time of the year. A key success factor is establishing good project management in advance to mitigate challenges that arise.
What goes out must often come back, and this year is expected to set another record for returned goods after the holiday season, according to Optoro, a firm that specializes in reverse logistics. The company estimates $90 billion worth of holiday gifts will be returned.
Holiday retail sales increased 4.9% between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, setting a new record for dollars spent, according to data from MasterCard SpendingPulse, the largest boost since 2011 and an indication of consumer confidence as the economy grows.