# UPS & FedEx Limit Shipments During Holiday Season

Published 2020-12-18 · Updated 2026-07-23 · Retail on MarketScale
Canonical: https://www.marketscale.com/industries/retail/ups-fedex-limit-shipments-during-holiday-season

> With a shopping season like no other, eCommerce is booming, which means a tremendous strain on logistics and delivery. In an attempt to manage demand, UPS and FEDEX worked out plans with their biggest customers that set limits on daily pickups, according to a Wall Street Journal article. Should a shipper exceed this, the carriers must…

With a shopping season like no other, eCommerce is booming, which means a tremendous strain on logistics and delivery. In an attempt to manage demand, UPS and FEDEX worked out plans with their biggest customers that set limits on daily pickups, according to a [Wall Street Journal article](https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/fedex-ups-are-managing-surge-in-packages-with-strict-limits-on-shippers-11608028201). Should a shipper exceed this, the carriers must hit pause until they have the capacity to do so.

Hosts [Daniel Litwin](https://marketscale.com/industries/contributors/daniel-litwin/) and [Tyler Kern](https://marketscale.com/industries/contributors/tyler-kern/) looked at the impact of this on the entire ecosystem, including:

- Alternatives for retailers, including Costco’s use of Instacart.
- Delivery scores moving higher even with these strict shipping rules (2020 looks better than 2019 thus far with on-time scores of 94.9% for FedEx and 96.3% for UPS for the period of Nov. 22 – Dec. 5.).
- Is the future of fulfillment internal? Will more large players build their own shipping and fulfillment infrastructure?

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