The trend of staying home and spending made for a strong online shopping season. Amazon recorded roughly 426 orders per second on Cyber Monday, and overall online sales were up 21% over 2012. Good news for some retailers, but the high volume combined with bad weather and a shorter than usual holiday shopping season to create a perfect storm for package shipping companies like Fedex and UPS.
Which firm is bearing the brunt of the blame? Google Search Trends topics view, which aggregates various search terms to gauge overall interest, suggests UPS may be fielding the most angry phone calls. You can see above where UPS and Fedex have had roughly the same search volume over the past 90 days. But UPS search volume rises sharply the first week of December with the largest differential right around Christmas. Welcome to the “Where’s my stuff?” debacle.
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