FedEx Corp. expects to have its busiest day in history on Monday, Dec. 10 when it moves a projected 19 million shipments through its global ground, express and freight networks. The 10 percent, year-over-year, busiest day increase will once again be driven by e-commerce feeding the carrier’s networks on “Green Monday,” which falls on the second Monday of December and is one of the most lucrative days of the year for retail companies.
In 2011, U.S. consumers spent $1.1 billion on Green Monday alone, according to comScore. Green Monday also traditionally kicks off the heaviest online shopping week of the year.
For the overall holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas, FedEx forecasts more than 280 million shipments to move through its worldwide shipping networks. This would be a year-over-year volume increase of more than 13 percent compared to 2011 when 247 million shipments were processed.
FedEx plans to increase headcount with approximately 20,000 seasonal personnel to help handle the surge in holiday shipments. The impact of the expected higher volumes was included in the company’s earnings guidance for fiscal 2013.
The Holiday Retail Outlook
The National Retail Federation (NRF) expects holiday sales to increase 4.1 percent this year to $586.1 billion. The NRF’s forecast is higher than the 10-year average holiday sales increase of 3.5 percent.
Online holiday sales (excluding travel) are expected to grow 16.8 percent year-over-year to as much as $54.5 billion, according to eMarketer. Almost $1 out of every $10 of consumer discretionary spending is now online according to comScore for eCommerce & U.S. Department of Commerce for Retail, February 2012.
