As businesses continue to encounter FedEx and UPS shipping delays, it is critical to plan ahead to mitigate the impacts on operations. 

While there isn’t much that can be done about the root causes behind much of this year’s shipping delays (labor shortages, adverse weather), there are a few things that often cause shipping delays that you can take steps to avoid today. 
We’ve put together some statistics regarding this year’s shipping landscape compared to previous pre-pandemic years, and outlined a few ways you can ensure your business doesn’t add extra, unnecessary delays. Contact Lamprey Systems today to learn about additional ways to begin saving money immediately on shipping costs.

Root Causes of 2022 FedEx and UPS Shipping Delays

UPS will continue the trend they started in 2020 of determining Additional Handling

The FedEx and UPS shipping delays that businesses are experiencing can negatively impact operations and are not expected to end in the near future. Primarily, shipping partners are dealing with labor shortages. In September, FedEx shared that one hub in Portland, Oregon was operating with about 65% of the staffing needed to handle its normal volume, resulting in the diversion of 25% of the volume that would normally flow through that hub. The shipper said that, across the ground network, more than 600,000 packages were being rerouted daily.

End-of-the-year holidays have always been a historically bad time for on-time packages, but Lamprey crunched the numbers and our data shows that this year is only unseasonably worse for FedEx Domestic Air:

These delays can be worsened by adverse weather conditions, human errors like incorrect address specification, and recipient unavailability – but most of all, lack of visibility into historical exception data that can show you why your packages are late. Over the holiday season, it’s likely that businesses across the country will experience holiday shipping delays that may leave their customers feeling neglected.

Prevent Avoidable Errors That Lead to FedEx and UPS Shipping Delays

There are a few ways to prevent avoidable errors that lead to FedEx and UPS shipping delays, so you don’t add extra stress to your operations during a season already fraught with delays.

Incorrect Address Specification

A wrong suite number or misspelled street name can cost you a hefty charge and a potentially lousy delivery experience for the recipient. UPS charges an $18 fee for deliveries completed following corrections to the original address. Address correction charges for FedEx start from $18 for ground shipments and increase from there.

However, paying an additional charge does not guarantee your package will be delivered on time, so it’s best to avoid corrections entirely. Try standardizing the address specification process at the time of generating labels with the help of address auto-correcting software. While a few address correction charges may be valid, some are not. 

Enlisting the service of automated audit software will help you eliminate any overcharges on your UPS or FedEx invoice. Being able to look at your past shipping history can alert you to common issues so you can take steps to prevent them from happening again. Keep in mind that recipients may never alert you to delivery issues, so you should proactively look for them. 

An active dashboard with access to shipping reporting is important for understanding areas of opportunity for cost savings and identifying ways to enhance customer service and satisfaction. Lamprey Systems can provide this, with access to much more historical shipping data than shipping partners offer so you can get a clear idea of issues that are common to your business.

Recipient Unavailability

Sometimes recipients are not available to receive the package at the time of delivery. It is also not uncommon for the customer to reschedule the delivery. It could be because the business is not open during the delivery window or it has moved to a new location.

Make sure you know when the receiver is open and available so you can coordinate delivery dates within those timeframes, and keep records up to date with correct addresses. It’s a good idea to give customers a simple way to share address and business hour updates with you.

Create a Proactive Plan to Minimize Shipping Errors

Looking at historical shipping data to understand why packages have been late in the past is key to identifying ways to optimize your shipping operations. A data-driven shipping optimization partner like Lamprey that offers a clear, easy-to-read dashboard with actionable insights makes it simple. 

Shipping partners only make a small amount of historical shipping data available, so to do this effectively you need a data-driven partner’s help. Lamprey’s dashboard shows you enough historical exception data so you can understand how many times you’ve shipped to a business when they weren’t open, didn’t include the proper paperwork, etc. Lamprey isolates each exception and groups them so you can see the most common errors that lead to shipping delays and form an action plan to prevent those problems in the future.

Contact Lamprey Systems to Start Saving Immediately

FedEx and UPS shipping delays due to supply chain issues are here to stay, at least for the near future, so now is the time to be proactive about finding ways to save and optimize shipping operations. All businesses are dealing with these issues, but Lamprey Systems can give you a leg up on the competition by finding ways for you to get immediate savings.

Lamprey can help you:

• Monitor shipping contract compliance and service levels in real-time.
• Optimize how you ship to minimize delays and keep customers satisfied.
• Increase carrier contract value.
• Enable more accurate shipping cost forecasting.

Contact Lamprey today to learn about additional ways to begin saving money immediately on shipping costs.