This holiday season, Americans spent a record $48.3 billion shopping online, up 15% on last year according to ComScore.
Of that, $5.8 billion was spent the week before Christmas, meaning millions of you spent the days prior to the holiday desperately checking online package trackers to see whether the gifts you ordered made it under your loved ones' trees by the 25th.
To see which stores stayed true to their delivery promises, e-commerce performance analysis startup StellaService performed a stress-test on the 40 largest online retailers, listed below.
New York-based StellaService used mystery shoppers all across the country to order gifts from each of these retailers, to be delivered to addresses in the east, midwest, south and west respectively.
Each order was placed on the cut-off date specified by the retailer to ensure delivery by Christmas. If no exact date was listed on the store's website, StellaService's mystery shoppers calculated a date based on delivery estimates for standard or free expedited shipping.
The results show that the companies with the most aggressive cutoff dates proved the most reliable. Apple, Dell, Nordstrom and Amazon.com shoe subsidiary Zappos all promised Christmas delivery for orders made on December 23rd -- the latest of the 40 retailers tested. These four companies delivered every package on time.
Overall, 7% of the gifts ordered on the Christmas cutoff deadline didn't make it. Orders placed with Best Buy, Costco, Crate & Barrel, J.C. Penney, Kohl's, Wayfair and Macy's all missed their December 25th delivery date in one of the four regions.
Only two retailers, Staples and Toys 'R' Us, missed their promised delivery deadline in more than one corner of the county. Staples also failed the test by cancelling an order for a tablet without notifying the shopper.
StellaService head of research Kevon Hills noted that Toys 'R' Us tried to make up for its imperfect online ordering infrastructure by touting in-store pickup options on their website.
"Once the cutoff date had passed, they were really leveraging their store footprint of over 1,000 stores," he said.
The online shopping data startup found that UPS was by far the preferred delivery method for these top 40 online stores, carrying out 59% of these orders versus 34% for FedEx. However, of the 10 delayed packages, 8 were shipped using UPS.
Hills was impressed with how retailers handled potential missed deadlines. For instance, when a package sent out by Nike looked like it might be late, their customer service team sent an email to the shopper offering 25% off their next order. The order arrived on time anyway.
When they could, stores shifted their dates slightly later, hoping to grab some last minute holiday sales. PC giant Dell moved its Christmas cutoff from December 17th to the 23rd, using FedEx Overnight for delivery. Every package made it.
Cosmetics powerhouse Estée Lauder moved its deadline from December 20th to the 22nd, choosing UPS to get orders to customers' doors. Every gift arrived by Christmas Day.
For more on StellaService's Christmas stress test, see here. For Forbes' profile of the e-commerce ratings company, see here.
Full List of Stores:
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Amazon
Foot Locker
L.L.Bean
Nordstrom
Staples
Apple
GameStop
Lands’ End
Office Depot
Target
Barnes & Noble
Gap
Lowe’s
Pottery Barn
Toys ‘R Us
Best Buy
Home Depot
Lululemon
Ralph Lauren
Under Armour
Costco
HP
Macy’s
Saks Fifth Avenue
Victoria’s Secret
Crate & Barrel
J.C. Penney
Neiman Marcus
Sears
Walmart
Dell
