MAJOR U.S. retailers missed fewer Christmas deliveries this year, according to two small, early surveys released Friday, partly reflecting a year’s worth of investments made to avoid 2013’s last-minute shipping debacle.

    This year, 7 percent of packages ordered online did not arrive by their promised delivery date, compared with 12 percent in 2013, according to a survey of 160 orders placed by retail-intelligence firm StellaService.

    Separately, management consulting firm Kurt Salmon said 13 percent of the nearly 100 e-commerce orders it surveyed did not make it in time for Christmas, down from 15 percent in 2013.

    In 2013, some 2 million express packages were left stranded on Christmas Eve, according to shipment-tracking software developer ShipMatrix Inc. The reasons given were, in part, a surge in demand triggered by last-minute online promotions and bad weather.

    This year, retailers pushed back the cut-off date for Christmas delivery by one day, but most were still able to hit the mark because of improvements to their logistics infrastructure, better weather and fewer last-minute deals.

    “We saw a lot less of the 11th-hour promotions,” said Steve Osburn, director of supply chain for Kurt Salmon. “They may have extended their deadline by about a day, but they were a little less aggressive about pushing those promotions.”

    Retailers set a Christmas cut-off delivery date between Dec. 19 and Dec. 20 this year, he said. The four retailers with the most aggressive cutoff date of Dec. 23 — Apple Inc., Dell Inc., Nordstrom Inc. and Zappos, a unit of Amazon.com Inc. — all made their deadlines, StellaService said.(SD-Agencies)