From our experience, there are always significant delays with shipping during the holidays. We have worked with all the major carriers and have experienced significant delays with all of them. Every holiday season, carrier companies like FedEx and UPS hire many temporary employees to handle the increased volume of packages shipped. This increased volume of packages and number of employees have resulted in delays, lost packages, and other horror stories. Please read this excerpt from our FedEx representative on what they expect for the holidays;


“...we typically move 9-10 million packages/day pre-pandemic, and now are moving close to 17 Million packages/day with a projected additional 30% increase during the holidays. Just to give you an example of the last major holiday, Labor Day Weekend, our Ground Network processed 2.1 Million packages in 2019. In 2020 we processed 9.4 Million packages.”


(2021) According to our local FedEx Hub, by mid November, they have already seen a significant increase in packages this year. All this being said, we want to minimize the chances of your fish showing up delayed or DOA due to rough handling from temporary or overworked workers and/or packages just lost in transit! We deal with both every year.


(Updated 2024) Year over year, FedEx has increased their fulfillment capacity to meet the needs of everyday consumers. 


"According to recent reports, FedEx Express has seen a year-over-year decline in package volume, with average daily package volume decreasing across most months of the fiscal year, particularly in the U.S. domestic market; this decline is attributed to softer demand and a cooling e-commerce boom, resulting in a decrease of around 2% compared to the previous year. "(Digitalcommerce360)


As we have been monitoring this decline, we've opened some of the shipping restrictions to allow us to ship for more days in December. However, shipping risk is always unpredictable and shouldn't be taken lightly! Therefore, this year we've renamed our previously known "Exception Shipping" to "Shipping by Request Only". 


TLDR

Shipping delays will happen with all major carriers and we work directly with carriers to monitor risk levels. We're always doing what is best for the fish. Please refer to "Shipping by Request Only" if you'd like to learn more about how to ship out your order safely. 

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