Have you ever wondered how your favourite Christmas present landed under your tree? While Santa coming down your chimney could be an explanation for how the presents got there, the maze through which your present travelled involves some of the world’s biggest companies, such as UPS (37^th on the Fortune 500) and FedEx (41^st on the Fortune 500), who are forced to work around the clock to deliver millions upon millions of Christmas letters, presents, and other packages around the globe.

The holidays present the largest challenge for courier companies, and many are forced to make additional hirings so your beloved new socks, among other presents, get to you on time. UPS announced in September 2023 that they planned on hiring an additional 100,000 employees to serve the holiday rush. In 2021 FedEx hired an additional 70,000 for the holiday rush and, here at home, Canada Post was forced to call in emergency hires during the tumultuous 2020 holiday season, but what’s more impressive is the number of packages they ship.

Major courier companies project they will be able to meet holiday demands for the 2023 season after bending under the weight of shipping demands in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Yahoo! Finance, the parcel industry projects to have the ability to deliver a whopping one hundred million parcels per day for the 2023 season! In 2021, the United States Postal Service (USPS) projected they would ship eight hundred to nine hundred million parcels and similarly, in Canada, Purolator projected an unprecedented 54 million parcels for the 2021 season. But demands in 2023 are slumping slightly and will likely not be as high in 2021.

For starters, the pandemic had a large effect on the landscape of shipping and delivery. In 2021, with stores still recovering from shutdowns, online retail boomed, and, with that, shipping companies were forced to ramp up services. But in 2023, physical retail is further along on the road to recovery and with the current state of inflation and the economy, customer demand for shipping is lower as customers turn to malls and physical retail stores. In the wake of lower demand, UPS reduced their 2023 revenue forecast in their third quarter financial reporting as customers such as Amazon brace for the slowest holiday sale rates since 2018.

High inflation rates coupled with record-high shipping costs mean that the holiday shipping season in 2023 will be more pedestrian than in years past, but the holiday season should still see shipping companies deal with the perennial task of meeting peak customer demand. So, when you put on those cozy new slippers you got for Christmas, remember the millions of kilometers and thousands of hands that helped presents like yours reach their destination.