The holiday shipping battle is underway

The Street

TheStreet’s Conway Gittens brings you the biggest news of the day, including what investors are watching and UPS and FedEx have started the holiday shipping battle.

Transcript

00:00I'm Conway Gittins reporting from the New York Stock Exchange.

00:02Here's what we're watching on the street today.

00:04Wall Street continues to bask in the glow of the Trump rally,

00:08with stocks trading near record highs.

00:10Travel and tourism stocks are in view on Friday

00:13with eyes on quarterly results.

00:15Expedia boosted full-year guidance

00:17after third-quarter bookings were stronger than expected.

00:20Meanwhile, quarterly results were mixed for Airbnb.

00:24Revenues topped forecasts, but earnings were underwhelming.

00:28In other news, there are fewer shopping days

00:31between Thanksgiving and Christmas,

00:33and that means a battle for your shipping dollars.

00:36UPS and FedEx are pulling out all the stops

00:38to make sure they get your order.

00:40The two are going head-to-head on price,

00:43undercutting one another,

00:45especially when it comes to luring orders

00:47from smaller businesses and merchants.

00:49The 2024 holiday season marks the first time

00:52both UPS and FedEx are offering discounts

00:55to smaller merchants,

00:57usually reserved for bigger e-commerce players.

01:00The discounts are already starting to kick in.

01:02According to ASF Logistics,

01:04ground shipping charges fell 2.5% in the third quarter,

01:08due in part to UPS and FedEx price cuts.

01:12Beefed-up competition is also a factor

01:14in pushing shipping costs lower.

01:16The U.S. Postal Service has stepped up

01:18its ground shipping game, taking away market share,

01:21and Amazon is relying more on its own delivery fleet,

01:25which is now delivering more than two-thirds of its orders.

01:28In the end, consumers might end up benefiting

01:31from all this competition.

01:33If retailers get into the holiday spirit

01:36and start passing on those shipping discounts to shoppers,

01:39then pressing the Complete My Order button

01:41will come with its own discount for you.

01:44That'll do it for your daily briefing

01:46from the New York Stock Exchange.

01:47I'm Conway Gittins with The Street.

01:55Thanks for watching.

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