Online holiday shopping is putting some strain on Sandy Springs-based shipping giant UPS, causing headaches for the package delivery firm and their customers at the busiest time of year, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Staffing up to handle the holiday demand – whether it be online orders or packages sent from grandma to the grandkids – is also a tough process. UPS does more business to residences that FedEx which hasn’t quite experienced the same level of stress, the Journal reported.

The newspaper reported that UPS' on-time deliveries of ground packages last week tumbled to 91 percent, citing data from ShipMatrix Inc., compared to 97 percent for the same week a year ago.

The newspaper said 97 percent is the typical rate for nonpeak months, too. FedEx is running at 95 percent on-time rates, the paper said.

The reason: bigger than expected online shopping since Thanksgiving.

UPS told the Journal the company experienced “some high impact areas” with package volume in certain areas of “levels greater than the original peak plan for those locations.”

Read more here.

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UPS driver Dan Partyka delivers an overnight package. As more people buy more goods online, the rapid and unrelenting expansion of e-commerce is causing real challenges for the Sandy-Springs based company. (Bob Andres/AJC 2022)

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