Shipping

With most holiday season merchandise already on its way to store shelves, import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports has started to decline for the fall, and November is forecast at 1.9 percent below the same month last year.

To get consumers more comfortable with last-minute online gift shopping, large retailers have embraced the concept of Free Shipping Day. Now small marketplace sellers can also use FreeShippingDay.com to promote their eBay and Etsy stores.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation yesterday that would undertake a sweeping restructuring of the U.S. Postal Service, aiming to put the ailing organization back on the path to financial stability.

Amazon’s delivery locker system, which was first tested last month in Seattle, has been activated in New York City. Instead of having a package delivered to your home or business address, people who live near to a locker location can choose to send it there and then collect it at a convenient time using a unique code.

Best Buy announced that it will waive minimum purchase limitations and offer free shipping on its complete inventory of 400,000 website items from Nov. 1 through Dec. 27.

FedEx expects a 12 percent jump in holiday shipments this year and will add about 20,000 workers to handle the record volume driven by online shopping. The surge is driven by a combination of gradual economic improvement and ever-increasing internet sales, analysts said.

Sears announced that it's offering free shipping from Oct. 30 through Dec. 19 at Sears.com and Kmart.com. In addition, the company is offering free same-day store pickup.

E-commerce shipping is an increasingly busy two-way street. In addition to its delivery strengths, the U.S. Postal Service is making sure it's the preferred shipper for packages traveling the returns lane as well.

Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to increase 2.6 percent in October over the same month last year and should reach its highest level of the year as retailers stock up for the holiday season, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

On the verge of reporting historic losses, the U.S. Postal Service is launching a new TV advertising campaign designed to slow the migration away from snail mail.