Domestic-Package Volume to Hit Milestone 4 Years Early

Daily domestic-package volume will hit a major milestone 4 years earlier than originally forecast by FedEx, the shipping carrier announced this week.

Prior to the pandemic, FedEx projected that the US domestic package market would hit 100 million packages per day by 2026. It now expects the market to hit this milestone four years sooner than expected, growing to 110 million packages a day in 2022 — with 86% of that growth expected to come from ecommerce, it said.

The news came as FedEx announced a new ecommerce solution in partnership with Microsoft that allows merchants the choice of offering additional customer experience options, including premium shipping options, seamless returns, and real-time shipping updates.

Together, FedEx and Microsoft are using tools like artificial intelligence and machine learning to extrapolate new insights from the 17 million packages that pass through the FedEx network each day to help brands deliver improved customer experiences.

FedEx and Microsoft joined forces in May 2020. FedEx Surround, the first FedEx customer-facing solution built using Microsoft Azure cloud technology, leverages AI, machine learning, and analytics solutions to proactively monitor the risk to FedEx packages along a delivery route, such as weather disruptions or traffic delays. The near real-time information helps FedEx keep shipments on track.

The new offering, FedEx data integration with Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, is expected to be available to customers in the US in the second half of 2022. The details are available on the Microsoft website.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.