Peak season can be both a brutal and profitable time for eCommerce retailers. The period from November through to the New Year can see sales soar, but it can also put serious stress on your supply chain — both in terms of delivering products and handling returns.
Peak 2023 may be looming, but there’s no need to stress. In this article, we’ll offer our advice on how to best prepare for the season. We won’t tell you how to market your business — we trust you know how to do that already — but we will offer best practices from a logistics perspective to ensure your peak 2023 is as profitable as possible.
What’s in Store for Peak 2023?
Probably more sales than 2022, to put it bluntly. From the start of the pandemic to the present day, there has been a constant increase in year-over-year holiday shopping. The rate of growth may be falling, but revenue is increasing, and that should mean more sales for your store.
Uncertain economic conditions do cloud the picture, however. As inflation continues to remain a problem around the globe, consumers are worried they may not be able to afford the gifts they want. Kenco’s 2023 eCommerce Peak Season Pulse found that over half (54%) of respondents were worried about this, with 65% planning to take advantage of a shopping holiday like Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
That tallies with the findings from a CNBC survey, in which 67% of retail executives said that the holiday shopping season would be driven by discount hunting. For some retailers, that could mean a fall in holiday shopping volume. For others, price-conscious consumers looking to snag a bargain could mean stores are even busier during discount shopping days.
How to Get Your Store Ready for Peak Shipping Season
Want to get your store ship-shape for peak season? Here are seven of the most impactful tasks we think retailers should complete.
Plan Ahead to Anticipate Demand
You should be able to get a rough idea of how many products you’ll sell during the peak season, which products will prove most popular and which countries will order the most goods.
Recent order volume reports and data from last year can help you to create at least semi-accurate forecasts that you can use to optimise stock levels and anticipate shipping costs. Your forecasts will never be 100% accurate, but they can help you prepare as best as possible.
Communicate With Suppliers
If you’re not already in communication with manufacturers and suppliers, get in contact as quickly as possible. Use last year’s order volume to anticipate demand for this peak period and avoid potential stockouts.
At the same time, make sure you are aware of production lead times. In doing so, you can ensure you order your most popular products with more than enough time to arrive at your warehouse.
Don’t Make Promises You Can’t Meet
Promising shoppers the world can be a great way to attract new customers. But it can also leave a sour taste in their mouths and send customer retention rates plummeting when an order that was meant to arrive in two days takes a week to get there.
While the rest of the tips in this article will help to get your logistics on point, you can help yourself by keeping delivery times realistic. Don’t make estimates, though. Instead, work closely with your 3PL or delivery partner and integrate delivery systems into your eCommerce platform so you can deliver accurate delivery times at checkout.
Train Your Support Staff
More sales means more questions for your customer support teams. Whether you have your own team in house or you use a third-party provider, make sure customer service reps have adequate training and know how to answer all of your customers’ most common questions.
Alternatively, you can streamline processes even further by integrating an AI chatbot into your store and pre-loading it with a series of questions and answers. At best, this can help you to deliver almost instantaneous customer support. At worst, you can have a customer service rep waiting to take over when the chatbot can’t provide a suitable answer.
Purchase Additional Shipping Materials
Cardboard boxes, plastic wrap, custom packaging; you’ll probably need a lot more of these items during peak season than the rest of the year. But many stores forget to stock up on shipping materials ahead of the holidays.
Waiting for packaging materials to arrive so you can send out parcels can seriously slow down your fulfilment process. Worse still is sending out products without the proper packaging and putting the safety and condition of your goods at risk as a result. Don’t forget that an underwhelming unboxing can go just as viral on social media as an exceptional one.
Ensure eCommerce Platforms, Applications and Integrations Are Working
Is your eCommerce software up-to-date? Do all of the integrations work between your store and your payment processor, warehousing solution and shipping provider? If you don’t know this for sure, or you’re worried about the number of orders that can flow through these systems at any one time, now is the time to check.
You should also make sure your store is connected to your email marketing platform, and that cart abandonment strategies are in place to mop up any potential purchases that get forgotten about.
Work With an Experienced Cross-Border Shipping Provider
The quality and reliability of your logistic partners can make all the difference during peak season. If they are as prepared as you, they should have the capacity and flexibility to handle soaring demand and ensure your customers receive their orders on time.
At Pro Carrier, we start planning for peak season a year in advance, allowing us to learn from the previous season and put processes in place that help us improve. Point in case, where other retailers and carriers struggled under the demand of the 2022 peak season, we experienced growth and improvement.
Our carrier-agnostic approach helps, too. Because we can seamlessly switch between carriers when required, it doesn’t matter if one carrier is struggling with demand — there is another fantastic service lane ready to pick up the slack.
Speak to an expert today for more information on how Pro Carrier can help you handle logistics this peak season and beyond.
