Compressed calendar strains holiday parcel delivery

The 2019 peak holiday shopping season has featured a rise in parcel delivery delays, with carriers hamstrung by powerful winter storms striking both coasts over the Thanksgiving weekend and by a quirk of the calendar that has slashed six days off an already hectic schedule.

In that context, logistics technology firm Convey Inc. is now offering a software tool that it says has given retailers early visibility into unreported delays affecting 17% of their shipments. Users of the Austin, Texas-based firm's software are using this visibility to proactively reset delivery date expectations with shoppers, the firm says.

Convey launched its new "Discover" tool on Friday, saying the platform is a transportation analytics and insights software solution for retailers that combines predictive insights and historical delivery performance reporting. The release is the latest product from Convey, which in 2018 landed a $10 million venture capital investment and announced plans to expand its last-mile delivery management software beyond the retail sector.

"Our customers tell us what's most important to them is really one thing -- to make delivery promises that they can keep," Convey's chief product and strategy officer, Michael Miller, said in a release."Discover is just one critical component to ensuring retailers are able to guarantee a perfect delivery. This holiday season has already proven what can happen when network congestion and weather combine to wreak havoc on the supply chain that serves e-commerce."

The compressed holiday calendar has placed extra strain on last-mile delivery operations, according to recent figures from the National Retail Federation (NRF). Retail sales in November increased 0.1 percent seasonally adjusted over October and were up 2.1 percent unadjusted year-over-year, marking the first half of the holiday season with billions of dollars in shopping still left to be done, the group said.

"November showed modest growth on the surface, but you have to remember that the late timing of Thanksgiving delayed the beginning of the busiest portion of the holiday season and pushed Cyber Monday's billions of dollars of retail sales into December," NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said in a release. "These numbers are more about the calendar than consumer confidence. Consumer spending has been solid, and there's still a lot of spending to be done. With strong employment and higher wages, we're on track for a strong holiday season."

Every day, our #AI model flags ~6% of parcel shipments as 'Predicted To Miss Their Estimated Delivery Dates.' In our newest blog, #logistics leaders can quickly pinpoint and take action on last mile bottlenecks before they miss promise dates.https://t.co/VtDUHRq80B

— Convey (@get_convey) December 16, 2019