With December fully upon us, we are officially in the home stretch of the online holiday shopping season. As we move further into the month, you’ll have less and less time to ensure that your purchases make it to your door in time for the holidays.
So, it’s time to get planning. To help you out, we’re laying out our entire holiday shipping cutoff schedule below. Some things to know about these cutoffs:
- These cutoffs reflect the worst-case times based on the furthest normal points of delivery from our OWC Woodstock main warehouse location.
- You can count on macsales.com to give you an accurate delivery ETA to your zip code while checking out. So if you receive a delivery ETA that is a bit earlier than what the cutoffs below suggest, trust the estimate—especially if you are closer to our warehouse! UPS Ground, for example, can normally take as long as 5 days to the furthest of the 48 Contiguous state destinations, but will be faster the closer you are to us.
- Speaking of UPS, we highly recommend them as they have been the most consistently on time/reliable not just throughout this year, but throughout the holiday season thus far.
- Ground delivery—via FedEx or UPS Ground—is faster the closer you are to OWC main warehouse in Woodstock, Ill. Our system will quote the safe days, so please note that other than Air options, these are the longest periods ground shipping should take. Having said that – holiday volumes, weather, and other factors are things that can impact transit time… earlier always the safer.
- UPS also now delivers Ground and Air to much of the USA on Saturday, even if Saturday isn’t selected. This is not a guarantee—but could be a benefit.
- One more thing: shipping to UPS pickup/locker centers can be a convenient way to ensure your package is there and avoid a missed delivery or an overloaded driver that doesn’t get to your house. Even though it is rare for a driver not to deliver due to an overloaded truck, the locker locations don’t get missed, period.
- WIth all of the above being said, it’s always better to have a little buffer built in. Things happen—like weather, which none of us can control. The more extra time you give, the less likely probability of something then causing your package arriving after Christmas rather than before.
US Domestic Cutoffs
Friday, December 15th
• Last Day for FedEx Home Delivery and FedEx Ground to arrive before Christmas
• Last Day for USPS First Class Mail *NO Live Tracking*
Monday, December 18th
• Last Day for USPS Priority
- Last Day for UPS Ground.
Tuesday, December 19th
• Last Day for UPS 3-Day Select Service
• Last Day for FedEx International Economy to Canada and Mexico
Wednesday, December 20
Last day for 2nd-day air by Christmas
• Last Day for UPS 2nd Day Air
• Last Day for FedEx 2nd Day Air
• Last Day for USPS Express
Thursday, December 21
Last day for Overnight by Christmas
• Last Day for UPS Next Day Saver and UPS Next Day Air
• Last Day for FedEx Standard and Priority Overnight (All FedEx Next Day services)
• Last Day for USPS Express Mail
Friday, Dec. 22
Last day for Saturday Overnight by Christmas
• Last Day for UPS Next Day Saturday (UPS Saturday deliveries shipped on 12/21 and 12/22 will be delivered on 12/23)
• Last Day for FedEx Saturday
US to Canada and Mexico Cutoffs
December 15
• Last Day for UPS Standard to arrive by Christmas
• Last Day for FedEx International Ground
December 19
• Last Day for UPS Worldwide Expedited
• Last Day for FedEx International Economy
December 20
•Last Day for UPS Worldwide Express
• Last Day for FedEx International Priority
