Getty Amazon packages will be delivered for the holiday up to December 24.
Christmas 2019 is almost here, and if you celebrate the holiday, it’s more than likely that you’ve purchased at least one gift on Amazon to be delivered for Christmas. Since Christmas Day is a federal holiday, Amazon packages will not be delivered on December 25, but they will be running delivery on Christmas Eve, December 24.
If you’re waiting on a package from Amazon and want to know if it will be delivered in time to be wrapped and ready as a Christmas day gift, here’s what you need to know:
Amazon Orders Must Be Placed by December 23 to Receive Packages Before Christmas
According to Business Insiders, Amazon has over 100 million Prime members to-date, making the holiday shopping season an especially busy time for the company and their merchants.
Even though Christmas is just around the corner, Amazon is still assuring customers that they can “Get items by December 24.”
On Amazon’s website, they advertise that, for “tens of millions of items,” Sunday, December 22 is the last day you can take advantage of free delivery in order to have your Amazon purchase delivered on time for Christmas Day. That’s not to say that if you order on December 23, your shipment won’t get where it’s going ahead of the holiday: Amazon says that for “over 10 million items” free one-day delivery is available as late as the Monday before Christmas.
If you placed your order after the “order by” window on December 23 or if it was ordered without Prime, it is not likely that it will be delivered to its intended destination in time for Christmas – anticipate that it will be delivered after the holiday. As a last-minute gift option that doesn’t require shipment or delivery, Amazon offers e-gift cards that can be purchased online and emailed to the recipient in time for the holiday.
Christmas is one of only 10 federal holidays observed in the United States each year. The others are New Years Day, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Presidents Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, the 4th of July, Columbus Day, and Thanksgiving.
Amazon Banned Third-Party Sellers From Shipping Via FedEx for Christmas
Ahead of the holiday season, Amazon banned its third-party sellers from using FedEx Ground to ship their customers’ Christmas deliveries, based on the suggestion that FedEx would be too slow to get packages delivered in time for the holiday. According to USA Today, FedEx said in response that the ban impacts “a very small number of shippers,” adding that the decision “limits the options for those small businesses on some of the highest demand shipping days in history, and may compromise their ability to meet customer demands and manage their businesses.”
In August 2019, FedEx announced that they would no longer be making ground deliveries for Amazon, two months after ending their air delivery contract.
Although Amazon still uses UPS for many of their deliveries, in recent months they have expanded their fleet of delivery vehicles in order to control their own deliveries more directly and reduce their reliance on other delivery services.