Crunch time for FedEx and Canada Post
Posted December 10, 2012 9:52 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – With just over two weeks to go until the big day, time’s a wastin’ for you to get your Christmas parcels in the mail.
FedEx expects today to be its busiest day of the year; it’s called ‘Peak Day.’
“We expect to move upwards of 19 million packages through the FedEx system globally today,” says Debbie Nebert at the courier’s YVR location.
Canada Post is expecting its busiest day of 2012 on Thursday, when it estimates it will move a billion cards, letters, and packages.
The postal service handles around 550,000 pieces of mail on a daily basis this time of year. You can expect that volume to spike to around 700,000 pieces or mail as Christmas gets closer.
The Christmas season is just one of several exceptionally busy periods Canada Post faces, as Black Friday and Cyber Monday gained some momentum in Canada this year.
“We had record numbers for that week and we expect to see that continuing all the way through the Christmas period. Another big season for us is right after Christmas, it’s the Boxing Day sales, and we see a huge amount of product come through here,” explains Randy Carroll with Canada Post.
The growing impact of e-commerce and other retail sales is so strong that Canada Post is in the habit of watching out for big deals and promotions so they can prepare for the coming onslaught of packages.
“We’re seeing a lot of uptake [of e-commerce]. We even monitor The Shopping Channel and (the media) to see where sales are so we can adjust our plan for the next day — because we know when they have the sale, we’re getting the mail.”
