Are you one of the unfortunate folks out there who had a package shipment delayed through Amazon?
Well, the e-commerce giant wants to make amends for your pain and frustration, as the company announced it will issue out $20 gift cards to any of those affected. Amazon came up with this solution after receiving a ground swelling of complaints from folks who didn’t get their packages on time for Christmas.
Both UPS and FedEx were blindsided by the higher than expected online sales generated through huge retailers like Amazon. The two biggest parcel carriers acknowledged that they were overwhelmed by last-minute orders and bad weather, which caused many packages to miss deadlines for expected delivery.
An Amazon spokeswoman commented by saying, “Amazon fulfillment centers processed and tendered customer orders to delivery carriers on time for holiday delivery. We are reviewing the performance of the delivery carriers.”
FedEx denied having “significant delays” with packages, although customers reported missing deliveries.
UPS, however, offered this explanation:
“UPS understands the importance of your holiday shipments. UPS is experiencing heavy holiday volume and making every effort to get packages to their destination; however, the volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity of our network immediately preceding Christmas so some shipments were delayed. UPS is not making pickups or deliveries on Christmas Day and will resume normally scheduled service on December 26.”
This isn’t the end of the world. Both parcel companies experienced an overload of shipping orders, so they missed deadlines. It happens. However Amazon should be worried as it continues to push people to buy things more online. This can become too much for the shipping companies to handle every holidays — the most busy time of the year.
Maybe this is the reason Amazon is looking to take the load off carriers with its own one-day delivery service via drones.