It was a busy morning at the FedEx distribution centre at the Ottawa Airport.
Workers were up early unloading an Airbus A300 and sorting thousands of packages into 110 trucks for delivery across the Ottawa region.
It was part of what FedEx is calling its busiest single day in history. The company estimates it will deliver 22 million packages around the world.
It’s the first time the company’s peak day has coincided with Cyber Monday – the busiest online shopping day of the year.
"Cyber Monday was a response to Black Friday from companies that did online sales. And it started about 7 years ago and it's really been catching on," says James Anderson of FedEx Express Canada. “The logistics behind handling 22 million packages in one day is quite phenomenal. It’s more than double our average daily volume.”
This year’s Cyber Monday is expected to be record-breaking. U.S. research firm, ComScore, estimates sales could hit $2 billion. Online retailer, Amazon.com, has hired 20-thousand more seasonal workers than it did last year.
FedEx’s own research points to the same trend. "We did a survey and we're projecting that 60% of Canadians will do their holiday shopping online this year," says Anderson.
That’s a lot of deliveries. But companies like FedEx are willing to rise to the challenge. “This is our Superbowl,” says Anderson. “This is what we live for. Bring it on.”
