FedEx, UPS, and USPS Holiday Shipping Deadlines For 2021
The holidays are here! With 45 of the 50 best-selling days of the year happening in Q4, merchants have a huge opportunity to drive a lot of revenue — but that doesn’t come without some challenges. For logistics, in particular, holiday fulfillment can be stressful for eCommerce businesses during the most wonderful time of the year.
In fact, nearly half (44%) of eCommerce businesses expect shipping delays & supply chain issues to be their biggest challenge this holiday season, topped only slightly by staffing (46%), as well as competition with larger companies (10%) like Amazon, etc.
On top of that, shipping during peak season takes longer than the rest of the year given the strain on shipping carriers’ fleets and networks, as millions of packages are getting delivered every single day. But paying attention to holiday shipping deadlines can be difficult if you don’t work closely with your carriers.
Love2Ship is here to help you keep up with international and domestic shipping services across a variety of shipping carriers so you can calculate your own shipping cutoff dates to ensure delivery before Christmas and communicate them with your customers.
2021 holidays for ecommerce brands
While you’re likely aware of Christmas as a common holiday in Q4, here are some key holidays in 2021 to keep in mind for your online store’s promotions and eCommerce holiday ads:
- Thanksgiving: November 25
- Black Friday: November 26
- Small Business Saturday: November 27
- Cyber Monday: November 29
- Free Shipping Day*: Tuesday, December 14
- Super Saturday**: December 18
- Christmas: December 25
- Peak Returns Day: January 2, 2020
*Participating merchants offer free shipping on all orders, with promised delivery by Christmas Eve.
**The last Saturday before Christmas is historically a huge shopping day for brick-and-mortar retailers.
2021 holiday shipping deadlines
Holiday shipping deadlines are the timelines carriers set to establish a cutoff date for each of their services to ensure delivery before Christmas, which falls on a Wednesday this year. Below we’ve compiled holiday shipping deadlines from USPS, UPS, and FedEx.
Note for eCommerce businesses: It’s not as simple as marking your calendars for these dates — you should add additional days for order processing in your communications to customers.
Here are your shipping deadlines for the 2021 holiday season, from USPS, UPS, and FedEx.
USPS Shipping Deadlines for 2021
Here are the shipping cutoff dates for USPS shipping services:
| USPS SERVICE | SHIPPING DEADLINE |
| Retail Ground | December 15th, 2021 |
| First Class Mail | December 17th, 2021 |
| Priority Mail | December 18th, 2021 |
| Priority Mail Express | December 23rd, 2021 |
FedEx Shipping Deadlines for 2021
Here are the shipping cutoff dates for FedEx shipping services:
| FEDEX SERVICE | SHIPPING DEADLINE |
| SmartPost Services | December 9th, 2021 |
| Ground | December 15th, 2021 |
| Home Delivery | December 15th, 2021 |
| Express Saver | December 21st, 2021 |
| 2-Day Services | December 22nd, 2021 |
| Overnight Services | December 23rd, 2021 |
UPS Shipping Deadlines for 2021
Here are the shipping cutoff dates for UPS shipping services:
| UPS SERVICE | SHIPPING DEADLINE |
| Ground | December 15th, 2021 |
| 3-Day Select | December 21st, 2021 |
| 2-Day Services | December 22nd, 2021 |
| Overnight Services | December 23rd, 2021 |
Process Orders Faster
Getting orders delivered on time is more than having a customer purchase by a specific date, you need to process and ship it in a timely manner, which can be very difficult if you receive a lot of holiday orders.
Love2Ship makes this process easier and will help you ensure your holiday orders are shipped in time for the holidays.
