United Parcels Service has many a busy day ahead of it, as it prepares for the rush of present sending to start.
UPS, the Atlanta-based shipping company and delivery service, issued a statement saying that it plans to deliver approximately 750 million packages in the period between Black Friday and New Year’s Eve, a 5 percent increase from the same period last year.
“Online and mobile commerce has transformed the retail industry, and UPS is ideally positioned to serve both our consumer and business customers during even these busiest of times,” said Kate Gutmann, UPS Chief Sales and Solutions Officer, in the release. The company also expects to deliver more than 30 million packages a day on most days in December this year.
To make up for the extra work, UPS will be imposing a peak charge of approximately 27 cents a package for U.S. residential parcels and packages that exceed size limits sent rom Nov. 19 to Dec. 23.
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“With the new peak charge, per-package costs for many shipments will only marginally increase during this very busy time of the year,” said Alan Gershenhorn, UPS Chief Commercial Officer, in a release. The company also plans to hire 95,000 temporary seasonal workers to drive, load and sort the packages as they arrive.
The additional costs are the first time UPS charges extra for deliveries sent during its peak hours — a move that, while risky, has not been met with too much outrage so far.
