Preparation measures to implement promptly for a thriving peak season:
As the shopping season approaches, retailers brace themselves for the usual challenges that come with an increase in demand. Economic downturns, such as supply chain delays, forecasting difficulties, and labor availability issues, can be particularly challenging during this period. Preparation is key to navigating these obstacles successfully.
A crucial part of this preparation involves setting your business up for flexibility. This entails adapting quickly with your suppliers, fulfillment partners, and customers. Options ranging from exploring alternative delivery models to enhancing order visibility and customer responsiveness can help businesses thrive during the peak season and beyond.
Kick-start the season early
In recent years, consumers have been beginning their holiday shopping earlier than ever. Making peak season offers available weeks or even months in advance can even out demand for your products and services, preventing delays in orders and ensuring no business is left on the table by pushing capacity limits.
Though the holiday surge may seem endless at times, it is actually a relatively small part of the year. Justifying significant investments aimed solely at addressing this demand can be challenging/difficult. Accordingly, moving some of the business forward makes the peak of the peak more manageable for your team and more convenient for your customers.
Evaluate supplier capacity
Collaboration with suppliers to proactively identify and eliminate threats to meeting demand is essential for effective capacity planning. Providing them with extensive data, from company-wide information to part- and process-level details, is integral to this process.
Stocking the expected products is vital to customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty, regardless of whether the peak season happens during the year-end holidays, spring gardening season, or back-to-school period. By maintaining open communication with critical suppliers, updates on their availability as the season progresses can help prevent even the most minor of availability issues, ensuring customer satisfaction when demand spikes.
Be prepared for disruption
The easing of COVID-19 restrictions has resulted in many industries operating in a market where demand exceeds supply, and bottlenecks persist. During periods of high uncertainty, mitigating supply chain risks requires a thorough understanding of each node in your value chain.
Understanding the intricacies of your supply chain and identifying vulnerabilities can help you select the most effective risk mitigation strategy, whether it be diversifying your supplier base, pre-vetting alternative solutions, or maintaining strategically placed safety stocks. Consider the following tactics:
- Total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) approach to safety stock: Balancing the risks of missed sales due to stockouts with the costs associated with the possibility of inventory write-offs can help your team better address risks while keeping your business competitive.
- Account for longer lead times: Regularly updating supplier lead times, and adding a buffer period to reduce the risk of delays, can help avoid delay-related issues.
- Increase visibility and responsiveness: Advanced control tower technology can help retailers identify and address blind spots in their operations, including supply shortages, logistical bottlenecks, and changes in consumer habits. Some of the most advanced tools work in real-time and can help sense demand fluctuations, supply chain disruptions, and even recommend corrective actions.
Integrate pivoting into your fulfillment strategy
While predicting consumer demand is inherently challenging, traditional carrier schedules and in-house fleet capacity should not limit the flexibility with which orders are fulfilled, or even whether they can be shipped at all. Partnering with a mix of fulfillment providers ensures you're prepared to deliver when orders come in. Crowdsourced delivery, in particular, can be useful as it offers same-day delivery, reaching 90% of U.S. households, helping businesses flex and scale their fulfillment capacity to keep up with the peak season rush.
Are you ready to learn more about how crowdsourced delivery and direct-from-distribution delivery can help you stay ahead during the peak season? Click here to explore Roadie's roadmap to peak season success.
Dennis Moon, COO at Roadie, oversees the day-to-day operations of the largest local same-day delivery footprint in the nation, covering over 20,000 zip codes.
[1] Inventory management strategies for a successful peak season: Understand Your Stock (stitchfix.com)[2] Do More Faster: A Month-by-Month Guide for Retailers Navigating a Peak Season (roq.com)[3] Control Tower Technology for Supply Chain Resiliency (supplychaindigital.com)[4] How to Prepare for a Successful Holiday Season in 2022 (availablecargo.com)[5] Optimizing Your Order Fulfillment Strategy for Peak Season (shippo.com)
- In light of consumers starting their holiday shopping earlier than ever, it's advisable to make peak season offers available weeks or even months in advance, to even out demand and prevent order delays.
- Adequate preparation for the peak season necessitates collaboration with suppliers to proactively identify potential threats and eliminate them to ensure meeting demand.
- Maintaining open communication with critical suppliers can help prevent even minor availability issues during spikes in demand, securing customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty.
- During uncertain periods, such as those due to COVID-19, understanding the intricacies of the supply chain and identifying vulnerabilities is crucial in selecting effective risk mitigation strategies, like diversifying the supplier base or maintaining safety stocks.
- To stay ahead during the peak season, integrating pivoting into the fulfillment strategy can help ensure orders are always fulfilled promptly, even with the help of crowdsourced delivery and direct-from-distribution delivery.
