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Chart by Statista as of September 2015

According to the Wall Street Journal, a huge increase in online orders is threatening to, again, overwhelm shipping firms between now and Christmas. According to data analysis, last week the on-time delivery rate for UPS fell from 97 percent last year to 91 percent this year. Given the lack of large weather disruptions, this suggests difficulty managing volume... already.

For the five days -- Thanksgiving through Cyber-Monday -- several data sources suggest a roughly 20 percent increase in online purchases compared to 2014 and about a ten percent decline for in-store purchases year-to-year.

There are also other market signals suggesting surging online consumer demand and tight supply.  According to DCVelocity,

From Nov. 29 to Dec. 5, spot rates for dry vans, the most commonly used form of truck equipment, jumped 6 cents, to $1.77 per mile, DAT said in data made available late yesterday. The load-to-truck ratio, which measures the number of dry van loads per available truck, jumped 32 percent, to 2.8 loads per truck, from 2.1 in the prior week. Last week, van loads posted for booking on DAT's load boards rose 49 percent, about doubling the normal levels for this time of year, which included the first full workweek after the holiday. Truck posts during the December week rose only 11 percent, setting up the surge in prices, according to DAT.

Earlier this year a 3PL executive told me he expected more and more disruption as demand will increasingly exceed the current availability of logistics to deliver.