Gift giving holidays are busy times at UPS and Valentine’s Day is no exception. Shipping volumes soar like Cupid’s arrows as customers send gifts of love, marking one of the carrier’s busiest times outside of the Christmas season, rivaled only by Mother’s Day.  

UPS aircraft, trucks and package centers will overflow with Valentine’s Day goodies, including the perennial favorite for the sweethearts’ holiday, fresh flowers.

Shipping flowers, one of the most delicate commodities, takes plenty of care to ensure they arrive as fresh as possible. The entire process, from farm to importer, takes as little as 15 hours. February 11 is expected to be the peak day for the flora, imported from South America, to move through UPS’s air network before arriving at the shops of wholesalers and florists.

UPS relies on refrigerated trailers to move temperature sensitive flower shipments from various distribution centers to major UPS sorts to maintain optimal flower temperatures prior to entering the sorting process.   

Also high up on the Valentine’s Day gift giving list is the beloved Teddy Bear. UPS will provide travel arrangements for about 115,000 Vermont Teddy Bears, with the bulk – about 50,000 – traveling today. The most popular bear? The Cupid T-shirt bear, of course.

But Valentine’s Day is not just about flowers and bears, UPS also ships bulbs, plants, cookies, fruits, specialty gifts, dinners, specialty desserts, heart-shaped pizzas and even live lobsters.

According to the Clearwater Fine Foods, lobsters are a popular Valentine’s Day treat. The company expects to ship 5,000 of the crustaceans to restaurants and retailers in anticipation of the holiday. This is second only to Christmas for Clearwater.

All totaled, UPS each year expects an influx of more than 750,000 additional packages during Valentine’s Day week, giving Cupid ample opportunity to work his magic.

Update: 2010-02-10 — 16:00 Added Vermont Teddy Bear photo.