Jet.com holiday delivery hits turbulence

Jet.com customers waiting for Christmas deliveries may want to start setting their sites on Boxing Day or other post-Christmas holiday events.



In a brief statement on its website, Jet.com acknowledged that it cannot guarantee that deliveries for any item not eligible for two-day shipping will arrive by Dec. 25. The statement cites nationwide shipping delays that have affected its delivery partners and thanks customers for their patronage during the retailer’s first holiday season.



Jet.com started notifying individual customers of possible holiday shipping delays on Dec. 15 and has also changed its standard delivery estimate from two to five business days to three to seven business days.



Jet.com does perform some in-house deliveries as well as rely upon third-party carries, such as UPS and FedEx. However, data from Bizrate Insights indicates that overall on-time delivery rates for online orders has dipped below 90% during the first half of December 2015, a worse general performance than the previous year.



Jet.com will probably be excused for its tardiness in an environment of general poor delivery reliability during its inaugural holiday season. But if the retailer wants to truly soar into the stratosphere occupied by e-commerce high-fliers like Amazon, it will need to do a much better job in time for the 2016 holidays.