Challenges of the peak shipping season

The striking contrast between the relatively busy produce period and the much more active shipping season can confuse business owners. Increased customer demand requires you to focus on your stock and supply flow. You need to supervise numerous supply chain operations and the work quality of your eCommerce platforms. Simultaneously, you’ve got to search for the most affordable ways to deliver your products.

Keeping your logistics strategy flexible during the peak shipping season may be challenging. It’s essential to complete the preparations before entering the active shipping phase. Modern transportation practices can help you adjust your supply chain to the intense transportation mode. 

How to prepare for peak-season shipping?

Despite the pandemic and economic uncertainty, companies seek to increase their sales and production. The key to success is thorough planning. The earlier your business starts this phase, the better. Here are a few valuable tips to prepare for the small business peak season.

Tailor your peak shipping season strategy

The main rule of peak-season shipping strategy is staying flexible. If the previous season wasn’t too intense in terms of planning, now you’ve got to manage all the logistics operations proactively. The best way to do it is to ship the ordered items according to your plan yet reacting to emerging spot opportunities for shipment.

Sometimes, carrier services look to pick up some additional freight to take up their capacity, which creates a possibility for delivering your boxes at a lower rate. In other cases, carriers may occasionally decrease their prices for spot shipments due to high customer demand. Be ready to react to market fluctuations by following the updates of your shipping provider.

Evaluate your stock

As a responsible business owner, you want to feel safe about meeting customer demand during the peak season. The first step is to estimate the volumes of your goods. Whether you store the items at a warehouse or other facility, verify you haven’t run out of stock in the previous shipping seasons. If so, it’s your sign to contact the vendor and discuss your supply needs. Besides fixing the supply flow, you’ll also deepen your relationships with suppliers.

Since stock issues are tricky, you can sometimes face the problem of leftover products. Even if you didn’t manage to sell out the items earlier, try organizing a promo campaign during the peak season to sell the goods at lower prices. Also, you can promote the overstock units as gifts for your buyers to grow customer loyalty.

Consider analyzing your previous sales to predict customer needs in the upcoming peak shipping season. They reflect the tastes of your target audience and help you identify the most beneficial products of your line. Besides, modern logistics offers numerous tools for demand forecasting that generate precise predictions of the customers’ future purchases.

Ensure multichannel communication

Apart from communicating with your suppliers, try to review the interactions you offer to the customers. During the peak shipping season, buyers expect to be members of the supply chain process and use different communication tools. One of them is implementing shipment tracking. Tracking systems can instantly provide consumers with all the crucial information on their shipments. This data includes order location, estimated time of arrival (ETA), and other valuable features.

Another tip is to upgrade your customer support channels. Assess the effectiveness of your support representatives’ work and determine possible areas for improvement. Maybe, you’ll benefit from integrating a FAQ section into your website or quick chatbots that come in handy for classifying customers’ requests. With categorized questions, it’s easier to connect a person with an appropriate support agent.

Cooperate with experienced carriers

Fast delivery is one of the determinants of successful peak-season shipping. To reach that goal, it’s necessary to partner with reliable carrier services which stick to delivery deadlines and know to avoid shipping delays.

Cooperation with platforms like GoShip increases the chance of finding a good carrier match. We can connect you to many professionals who prioritize shipment timeliness and safety. It guarantees you items’ security and customer satisfaction.

Before entering the busy moving season, monitor carrier rates to understand your logistics budgeting better. In terms of high demand and tight transport capacity, it may be hard to arrange a shipment, but GoShip is here to assist you. On our website, you can compare freight shipping rates, check out available options, and get an LTL quote in a moment!