Retailers Still Fall Short of Online Shipping Promises

Surprise, surprise, retailers may be exaggerating their ability to hit shipping deadlines for online orders. Take this past holiday season. The few retailers brave or cocky enough to promise Christmas delivery on orders up until midnight on Dec. 23 only got about two-thirds of those packages down the chimney in time, according to a new study by retail consultancy Kurt Salmon. Most retailers gave more conservative guidelines, setting cutoffs on Dec. 25 delivery a week to five days earlier. But that bunch wasn't too reliable either, posting a success rate of only 80 percent.