Carrier and shipping company FedEx will be extending its delivery days in the United States. The FedEx Ground U.S. operation will move to six days per week all yearround. Previously, they have only offered six- and seven-day ground operations throughout the Christmas peak season. The move also reflects that key competitor UPS added Saturday delivery last year. At the moment, FedEx delivers on average 14 million parcels a day.
The rise in demand for e-commerce goes beyond peak. It’s a year-round phenomenon, and we are ready to meet that demand. Thanks to strategic investments in our network, we are now well-positioned to operate six days a week in the U.S. all year to best serve the rapidly growing demand. These significant facility and automation investments have been taking place for many years, but are now largely complete. We underwent a transformation by opening new facilities and investing in highly advanced technology and innovations that have resulted in the most automated network in the industry, delivering the speed and reliability our customers value highly.
– Raj Subramaniam, executive vice president, chief marketing and communications officer, FedEx
Specifically, the investments he mentions made by FedEx include nine new hubs and 58 automated stations that have served to extend the FedEx network and expand capacity. FedEx will also increase hours for some of its 425,000 existing employees and hire approximately 55,000 extra seasonal workers in 2018.
What is specifically notable about this extension of service to 6 days all year round is that it is primarily driven by service demand generated by ecommerce in America. And that’s a trend we’ve seen worldwide, particularly with national postal services: letter volumes are dropping but usage for parcels is on the up. Businesses that are in a place to take advantage of that trend are responding and expanding. Typically national postal services are struggling to do that.
