Holiday Shipping Delays Fall Hard On Retail SMBs

holiday package and Santa

The clock is about to strike midnight on the holiday shipping and shopping season, and the delays associated with this year of the digital-first economy have only accelerated over the past few days. And while the big players like Amazon, Walmart and Target have been able to control their own destiny through their own transport networks or store-as-fulfillment center models, the focus now falls to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

It’s the Amazon, Shopify and Etsy sellers that are now staring at late deliveries for Christmas, and their reputations and revenue hang in the balance. With the United States Postal Service (USPS) basically throwing in the towel on timely deliveries, the final day of the holidays looks bleak.

The last official statement from the USPS was issued last week. “While every year the Postal Service carefully plans for peak holiday season, a historic record of holiday volume compounded by a temporary employee shortage due to the COVID-19 surge, and capacity challenges with airlifts and trucking for moving this historic volume of mail are leading to temporary delays,” it said. “These challenges are being felt by shippers across the board.”

Hardly a vote of confidence, and the internet has been rife with local reports of post offices in disarray and postal trucks lined up outside distribution centers. For example, investigative reporters from Detroit’s WXYZ found tractor trailers lined up around the street trying to deliver and pick up packages at the U.S. Postal Service Detroit Network Distribution Center in Allen Park. The station counted at least 50 of them trying to get into the Allen Park plant on Monday, Dec. 21. It reported that postal workers describe wall-to-wall packages, and letters are stacked up wall-to-wall there as well.

“Almost nowhere to walk, nowhere to place this mail and get it transported in and out smoothly,” Keith Combs, president of American Postal Workers Union Detroit Local 295, told the station.

The panic around shipping has landed hard on independent sellers. BuzzFeed News talked to five Etsy sellers who knew their products might not be delivered by Christmas, and they feared the repercussions of  negative reviews and less business in the future. “It’s just frustrating, because it does kind of feel like Etsy’s left us to the sharks,” said Etsy seller Alanna White. “And they’re just going to collect their money and run.”

Etsy has not officially addressed the issue. A spokesperson defended the company in a statement to BuzzFeed: “To address carrier delays in the US, we’re focused on supporting sellers by making available the latest information we have,” the spokesperson said, “and we’ve dynamically adjusted estimated delivery dates and on-site communications so that buyers have the insight they need when making decisions about their holiday purchases.”

While Amazon has performed better for its own goods than other retailers, its independent sellers are also stressed about the delays. They are compounded by extended lead times  for shipping to Amazon warehouses to replenish inventory for those sellers.

“Our top seller, a laptop dock, we only have a week left in stock at Amazon,” said Bernie Thompson, founder of Redmond-based electronics goods brand Plugable Technologies, which sells 95 percent of its merchandise on Amazon. “We’re trying desperately to get goods in. But we can’t get it fast enough. And if we can’t get goods in to Amazon, our company doesn’t have revenue.”

The USPS has its own issues but Amazon sellers have not been able to find any relief among other carriers, which are also overwhelmed. Thompson told the Seattle Times that UPS carriers consistently miss delivery windows to pick up new merchandise from Plugable’s California warehouse to deliver to Amazon. Trying to address the situation, Plugable is increasing its  number of smaller shipments, which eats into profits by boosting the company’s shipping costs.