Package delivery company FedEx Corp. expects to see its busiest day in company history when it anticipates moving almost 16 million shipments on December 13. If achieved, this would represent an 11% increase from last year’s busiest day when the company handled 14.2 million shipments.
For the overall holiday season, FedEx is expecting a total volume increase of approximately 11% compared to 2009. FedEx forecasts more than 223.3 million shipments will move through its global networks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
More than half of the holiday season volume increase, it is believed, will be from FedEx SmartPost shipments, which are largely driven by online retailers and cataloguers who ship high volumes of lighter shipments to residential customers.
During the week of December 13, also the busiest week of the year for FedEx, the company expects to move more than 63.1 million shipments compared to last year’s busiest week of 57.5 million shipments. Items such as books from large internet retailers and retail inventory such as apparel, personal consumer electronics and luxury goods will drive FedEx holiday volumes.
On average, more than 8 million packages move through the FedEx systems daily.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), holiday sales are expected to increase a moderate 2.3% this year to $447.1 billion. This growth is slightly lower than the ten-year average holiday sales increase of 2.5%. In 2009, sales increased 0.4%. NRF also found that retailers will continue to focus on supply-chain efficiencies and inventory control.
Online holiday sales are forecast to climb 15% compared to last year according to the research and consulting firm Deloitte.
