Delivery co.’s gear up for year’s busiest mailing and shipping week
Many consumers are in a sprint to the finish getting their holiday gifts and greetings in the mail.
This week is anticipated to be the busiest of the holiday mailing and shipping season for delivery services such as the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx.
While the government agency expects to process and deliver nearly 2.5 billion pieces of mail, including packages, this week alone, FedEx kicked off the season with record volume on Cyber Monday, shipping more than 33 million packages.
Overall, the U.S. Postal Service anticipates delivering 800 million packages between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, it added.
“This holiday season, U.S. retail e-commerce sales are expected to grow 13.2% to $135.35 billion, contributing to what is expected to be the first-ever trillion-dollar holiday season,” FedEx executives said.
Rolando Medina, managing director of operations of FedEx in Puerto Rico, said for customers to “ensure that the will receive their packages, the first thing is to have a clear address and if they know they won’t be home, to provide an alternative one.”
FedEx has shipping and receiving centers in Aguadilla, Ponce, Mayagüez, Caguas, Carolina, the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, Metro Office Park and Hato Rey. Its network also has the support of 107 Walgreens locations in Puerto Rico. All of the locations offer holding packages for up to five days, at a customer’s request.
For the most part, Puerto Ricans send food and gifts to their mainland friends and family. When packing food, they must be frozen and could be kept cold during the trip with cooling gel packs, he said.
“We have a box that has a flexible cooling back inside. People can bring the frozen food to our customer service centers and we can help them with the appropriate packaging,” he said.
