Procrastinators caused UPS’s holiday deliveries to be less than rosy for the company.
UPS Inc. said a last-minute Internet gift order surge in a shortened peak holiday season strained its delivery system. The result lead to a fourth-quarter earnings of about $1.25 per share, 18 cents below Wall Street estimates.
“U.S. results were negatively impacted by the challenges of the compressed peak season coupled with an unprecedented level of online shopping that included a surge of last-minute orders,” the UPS statement said. UPS also indicated that bad weather hampered operations during the holidays.
Because the holiday season was six shopping days shorter than 2012, there were more than 31 million deliveries due December 23rd. December 23rd was the peak delivery day for UPS with a volume 7.5% higher than UPS had planned for. UPS had planned for the peak to arrive six days earlier. This December 23rd surge was 13% above the top delivery day experienced by the company in 2012. This made UPS’s December 23 deliveries the most ever recorded on a single day.
