As a homebound nation increasingly shops online for holiday gifts, private express carriers FedEx and UPS have cut off delivery service for some retailers, sending massive volumes of packages to the Postal Service and creating major delays.
U.S. online holiday sales are expected to shatter previous records. Adobe Analytics, which measures sales at 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers, predicts a total of $189 billion in online holiday sales, a 33% increase compared to last year.
Raj Subramaniam, president and chief operating officer at FedEx, said the company achieved “the growth that we expected to see over a period of three to five years … in a period of three to five months.”
The delivery giants have seen a boom in residential deliveries since lockdowns kept consumers out of stores, and fear of contracting the virus has limited their shopping trips.
The 4-year-old company uses proprietary software and legions of small farmers and gig drivers to create an Amazon-like system that delivers fresh produce, meats, dairy products and other local food.
The owners of Moonshot Games are launching a delivery service they say can help local independent retailers compete with Amazon.com and the big-box stores.
The historic Hammond Block building will be the second location for the bar that started in South Bend. Also this week: Fresh Thyme, The Empty Vase, Forever Gallery, Lily & Sparrow, Kits & Kaboodle and more.
The grocery delivery service, which entered the Indianapolis market in 2011, had hoped to grow its local workforce to as many as 238 employees but fell far short of that goal. On Tuesday, it announced it was pulling out of Indianapolis and other Midwestern markets.
The partnership unites Pierce Aerospace’s remote identification technologies and DroneDek’s patented last-mile logistics offering, including a drone mailbox system.
Indiana State University is at the forefront of the increasingly complicated and important world of packaging. It’s one of seven colleges in the U.S. to offer a four-year degree in package engineering technology.
The company said the delays are due to bad weather in parts of the country and the large amount of orders it received during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when it offered steep discounts.
Amazon said its new drones use computer vision and machine learning to detect and avoid people or clotheslines in backyards when landing.
Amazon.com Inc. plans to spend $800 million in the current quarter to reduce delivery times for Prime customers to one day from two.
The online retail giant announced plans Monday to make half of all its shipments carbon neutral by 2030.
The courier has cut its financial outlook just three months after raising it, reflecting an abrupt change in FedEx’s view of the global economy.
The Memphis, Tennessee-based company did not say how many positions it wants to eliminate or from what locations. But its Indianapolis International Airport hub is part of the Express division that will be targeted for the buyouts.
Walgreens is joining rival drugstore chain CVS Health in expanding home deliveries for prescriptions, as stores continue adjusting to a retail world made more consumer-friendly by online competition.
The recommendation could raise costs for Amazon and other major businesses that are currently using the Postal Service to supplement their delivery operations.
Jeff Bezos boldly predicted five years ago that drones would be carrying Amazon packages to people's doorsteps by now. Amazon customers are still waiting.
The upgrade and expansion of the giant shipper’s 320-acre, 2.5 million-square-foot complex is driven by the need to keep pace with steady growth in e-commerce activity.
