Will Your Online Orders Arrive In Schenectady Before Christmas?

Holy Karolyi! Christmas is almost here! Not all of us are done shopping and some of us have not even started. The peak shipping week runs from December 16th through December 21st. For those in Schenectady, or any Capital Region town, that placed online orders it is now a waiting game.

For most of my life I have enjoyed going to the mall or the neighborhood shops for my holiday shopping. For me it has always been important to hand pick my gifts and I even resisted giving gift cards because I felt it was too impersonal.

Today I love giving and receiving gift cards and I have also joined the ranks of online shoppers. Three years ago I cut it real close and packages just made it in time. The last couple of years I felt like I had it down. Order early and no worries, right? Not in 2020!

This holiday season there are a few factors that may have your packages delayed. Once again COVID-19 plays a big part in 2020. Due to the pandemic there are new protocols to follow, shipping companies are seeing a record number of packages to deliver and not enough employees to deliver them.

So, will your packages arrive on time? According to UPS you still have time. If you want your packages to arrive by Christmas their site says you can order an item on December 23rd, using UPS Next Day Air, your package will arrive in time. Just typing that makes me nervous. Can that be?

I ordered something for my son and signed up for text alerts so I can track the package. Well, 10 days ago I paid for the gift and the only action so far is that a label has been made for this delivery. It is currently sitting 143 miles from here and refreshing the tracking page doesn't seem to make it move.

We can't blame the mail carriers or the delivery people. They are out there from morning to dark, in the cold and now 30 inches of snow trying to get your goods to you. Oh yeah, that's another reason for delays. The Northeast, specifically the Capital Region was just slammed with snow!

From what I read UPS and FedEx have stopped shipments for GAP, Nike, Macy's and others because these retailers have exceeded the agreed upon shipping limits. I don't mean to be a scrooge. I sincerely hope everything arrives on time and that you have a happy holiday.

To be honest I will never understand how Santa does it.