Shipping mayhem as Christmas Day approaches

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - Between the pandemic, the holiday season and now the winter weather, mail services and retailers are being stretched to the max.

With one week to go till Christmas Eve, retailers like Target and Walmart say you only have a couple days left to order gifts for Christmas, but Amazon says you have a little more time.

“Customers can order millions of items on Wednesday, Dec. 23 for one-day delivery and if customers want even more time they can order for same-day delivery on Thursday, Dec. 24,” said Av Zammit, Amazon spokesperson.

But the question is will the gifts get there in time? Amazon says they increased their hiring over the course of the year because of the pandemic, which has made the holiday season easier.

“We’ve seen a high demand this year but we were prepared for that by recruiting hundreds of thousands of new employees this year, including over 200,000 full-time and part-time associates, as well as an additional 100,000 seasonal associates,” said Zammit.

The United States Postal Service has an alert across the top of its website that says they’re experiencing “unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to COVID-19.”

In a statement, USPS said this is their busiest week of the season and that they’ve expanded deliveries to earlier in the morning and later in the evening. They say you have until Dec. 18 for first-class packages, Dec. 19 for priority mail service, and Dec. 23 for priority mail express service.

UPS was also unavailable for an interview but sent a statement saying they’ve expanded weekend operations to get packages delivered.

NBC12 reached out to FedEx but did not hear back.

Copyright 2020 WWBT. All rights reserved.

Submit a news tip.