The epidemic has boosted online shopping, and the logistics industry is overwhelmed

The COVID-19 outbreak has led to a surge in online shopping this holiday season in the US, but deficiencies in supporting services such as logistics and warehousing have surfaced, with some logistics companies even shutting down some goods.

UPS imposed shipping restrictions on large retailers such as Gap and Nike this week, foreign media reported, in the first sign that the COVID-19 fuelled online shopping season is pushing delivery networks to the limit.

According to the Wall Street Journal, UPS this week told drivers across the COUNTRY to stop picking up packages at six retailers, including outdoor brands L.L.EAN and Macy's.

The move by logistics companies is being forced by a trend that is changing the retail business model as the COVID-19 outbreak has led to a sharp drop in store foot traffic this shopping season and retailers relying more on delivery companies to deliver online orders, the report said.

Some drivers said they had never seen such temporary shipping restrictions before during the holiday season, suggesting that UPS is adjusting the volume of packages on its network to be accurate during the busiest shipping week of the year. The National Retail Federation estimates that online shopping jumped 44 percent in the five days, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday, compared with the same period last year.

A UPS spokesman said the company would resume normal parcel collection as soon as it had more capacity. Shipments typically spike in the week after Thanksgiving, then fall slightly, then surge again the week before Christmas, a spokesman said.

"While uncertain events such as the COVID-19 outbreak and the US election affect consumer shopping behavior, we expect record e-commerce sales between now and Christmas," said Adobe division director Tyler Schrenner.

There are signs that some e-commerce warehouses are already struggling to cope with the increased logistics load. The number of holiday shopping errors on the online shopping sites of some leading retailers is already 39 percent higher than the same period last year, figures show.

Amazon, an e-commerce company with its own logistics service, has also been affected, with its warehouses and distribution stations across the United States operating at full capacity. Third-party sellers on Amazon said it now takes a week or more for many items to reach customers, compared with a day or two for delivery. Merchants from California, Texas, Wisconsin and Florida said they had to find other ways to ship goods normally handled by Amazon logistics.

An Amazon spokeswoman said in an e-mailed statement that 'the individual cases faced by third-party sellers are not necessarily a general problem.' "We have not changed the way we deliver to our customers," he said. "As always, we balance the supply of our products with a combination of the lowest price, fastest delivery and highest volume."