Brooke Sutherland, Columnist

The Holiday Shipping Snafu That Wasn't

Worries that 2019’s shortened shopping season would foul up UPS, FedEx and Amazon proved to be unfounded. Plus, more industrial insights.

January 10, 2020 at 8:02 PM UTC

By Brooke Sutherland

Brooke Sutherland is Bloomberg News' Boston bureau chief and writes the Industrial Strength Newsletter. She was previously a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies and an M&A reporter for Bloomberg News.

Packages got there on time, more or less.
Photographer: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg

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The stretch between Black Friday and Christmas during the most recent holiday season was the shortest it’s been since 2013, a year that will live in logistics infamy after United Parcel Service Inc. failed to deliver gifts in time for their contents to become stocking-stuffers. So the big question this time around was: Had UPS learned enough – or more accurately, spent enough — over the past few years to avoid similar e-commerce pileups in its network?