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Millions of stir-crazy Americans with a new knitting habit helped U.S. e-comm sales grow 49% in April, per Adobe Analytics. But the same online growth that’s sustained some retailers has hamstrung at least one shipper.
FedEx’s shipping network is so overwhelmed, it’s limiting shipments for about two dozen major retailers through at least May 19, according to the WSJ.
- Abercrombie & Fitch, DSW, Kohl’s, and Nordstrom are among the retailers whose customer deliveries will now be delayed due to shipment caps.
- Placing limits on shipments is standard during periods with high order volumes like the winter holidays, a FedEx spokesperson told the WSJ.
This isn’t the holidays. Armed with forecasts that orders will spike in December, FedEx can prepare to turn ground shipping routes into NASCAR tracks. But as you might have heard, retailers found the pandemic and its many effects to be unprecedented.
Another problem: Retailers like DSW have started fulfilling online orders with inventory from closed stores. That takes dusty slippers off retailers’ hands, but it clogs up FedEx’s shipping network.
- Typically, retailers truck online orders from their distribution centers to FedEx’s warehouses to sort and send.
- Now instead of one or two distribution centers, brands are shipping from multiple stores—and asking FedEx to pick up the packages from them.
Are there solutions? FedEx is increasing Sunday deliveries and hiring more workers to suit up in its purple shorts. But it’s also asking retailers to bring orders from closed stores to its shipping facilities to clear out the bottleneck.
If FedEx can’t keep up, there might be an opening for smaller micro warehousing and delivery services to poach brands shipping from closed stores, especially in urban areas where existing providers are buried in boxes.
Zoom out: Even Amazon’s proprietary fulfillment network hit the brakes in March as bunker orders overwhelmed warehouses. But it’s showing signs of reviving its two-day shipping speed, per CNBC. Amazon lifted restrictions on sellers’ shipments on Saturday and relisted deals that encourage shoppers to do what they do best this week.