Skip to footer

UPS, FedEx delays turn white Christmas into 'wait' Christmas

UPS and FedEx were unable to deliver some packages guaranteed for Christmas delivery on time. It's a holiday parable of how just-in-time logistics can sometimes go wrong.

|
Charlie Riedel/AP/File
A package handler arranges packages before loading a delivery truck at a FedEx sorting facility in Kansas City, Mo., earlier this month. Some packages didn't make it in time for Christmas this year due to shipping problems at UPS and FedEx.

For some Americans, it wasn’t so much a white Christmas as a “wait” Christmas. Thousands of families across the country found themselves without expected gifts on Dec. 25, due to shipping snarl-ups at companies including UPS and FedEx.

The problem: Thanksgiving came late this year, leading to a compressed holiday shopping season. Add in some bad winter weather, the increasing consumer shift from physical storefronts to online ordering, and the tendency of many shoppers to make decisions late in the game, and it was enough to thwart pledges of delivery by Christmas Day.

Most packages did arrive as expected, and it’s not yet clear how many holiday shipments have been held up. The postponed packages should largely arrive during the next couple of days, but the incident offers a window into an economy built around just-in-time logistics – and how it can break down due to glitches or unexpected demand.

The delays prompted reactions ranging from anger to forbearance by affected consumers. In lieu of the actual gifts, some Americans showed family members photos of the coming items or wrote apology notes.

"I've had to apologize to three different people when I thought I had everything wrapped up and good to go way before," Dallas resident Jeff Cormier told the Associated Press, citing packages in transit via UPS.

On Twitter, some consumers excoriated shipping companies for their failure to meet the demand. (Some consumers said delayed packages had been ordered as much as three weeks before Christmas.)

Others expressed patience or praise for workers in an industry that faces perennially heavy demand at this season.

And not a few saw the uproar as an indication of the true meaning of the holiday getting lost in a focus on material presents.

Shipping companies have responded with damage-control efforts.

“UPS experienced heavy holiday volume and is making every effort to get packages to their destination as quickly as possible,” says a succinct message flagged on the shipping company’s home page.

Amazon.com, the website where legions buy online goods, is among the retailers caught in the crossfire. The company said it will cover the shipping costs for delayed items and offered $20 gift cards to affected customers.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to UPS, FedEx delays turn white Christmas into 'wait' Christmas
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/1226/UPS-FedEx-delays-turn-white-Christmas-into-wait-Christmas
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe