It’s a wonderful time when the holidays start up! Great parties, tons of food, and lots of gifts about, and with gifts comes shopping! Many people are searching for presents for their friends and family throughout the year, meaning they’re coming to you to get those perfect gifts! It’s estimated that each person in the U.S. will spend over $700 just in presents in 2025 alone! With an influx of spending and shipping, navigating this time can become very chaotic and highly stressful. However, with these 10 tips, you’ll be able to prepare and more calmly tackle the challenges ahead!
1. Preparation
Preparation is key to any task. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That’s why it’s better to start planning as early as possible. Some begin around September, while others may go as far as June or even earlier! But even if you start at a later time, like October, you can still be successful; it will just require more focus and work to get it done. By preparing for the holidays, you ensure that you have the capabilities to accomplish the tasks at hand.
Look over what you have already and what you will need for the season. Consider what supplies you need, like tools, packaging, documents, and more. You will also need to see how your budget is and balance it out. See what you can spend to maximize efficiency and where you need to hold off so you don’t break the bank.
2. Historical and Dynamic Forecasting
Looking back at past holidays can give you perspective on how to prepare for the current holiday season. Generally, shopping tends to ramp up closer to the holiday season, starting around September/October. However, looking at how consumer spending throughout the year has gone so far also helps decide what to do, so it’s good to include that data in your decisions too.
But these days, it’s not enough to just look at historical data. New and developing technologies like AI help make forecasting better, too. These technological advancements have the scope to observe current trends and see how economies and consumers are acting, and predict where they will head. Combining predictive algorithms with historical data and polls will give you the best sense of what you need to do and where you need to go for your business.
3. Ensure You’re Properly Staffed
With purchases and orders increasing, it will be tougher to meet demand. That’s why it’s vital to ensure that you’re adequately staffed for the holiday season. More orders mean more packaging, which requires more people to handle and ship
Typically, seasonal staff are hired around September to October so that they have time to learn all of the systems and procedures needed to do the job. It is important to properly train your seasonal staff so that they are capable of performing the tasks at hand. Otherwise, all of that work ends up costing you more than if you hadn’t hired them in the first place, with errors that you will need to fix, especially if they end up hurting customer loyalty.
4. Create Clear Expectations For Customers
More demand means more customers, which is great for business! That’s until something, inevitable, goes awry. While we want every shipment to go right, it sometimes won’t, especially with a higher influx of shipments going out. Most carriers are at or very close to capacity during most of the year, so to have it increase is quite the logistical challenge.
That’s why expectations with customers need to be clear. Shipping can be slower, especially closer to December. Also, some items might be incredibly popular and sell out fast, so if you happen to stock an item that sells out, let your customers know about it and create times and safeguards for customers to fairly get it. If something does go wrong, then continue to keep open and accurate communication while you try to remedy the issue. Also, make sure that whether it’s your store or website that you have your policies up to date and readily available for anyone to see and access.
5. Flexibility in Ordering Shipping and Options
Different customers will have different needs for their shipping, whether they need it now or later. By keeping up reasonable expectations, giving customers different options for their shipping gives them a greater sense of ease and control in their holiday shopping. It’s up to you what shipping services you can provide and afford, like expedited shipping or 2-day shipping.
Another thing to do is to make ordering items for shipping as easy as possible. This doesn’t just include online ordering but also ordering in-store if you run a brick-and-mortar location. That way, if someone comes in for something but it’s out of stock, then they will be able to order it through you, letting you keep the sale and letting the customer get their items!
6. Consolidate Shipments to Keep Rates Lower
Keeping a balanced budget is an important aspect of surviving the holidays. Too much spending and you will be eating away at profits. Too little and you will be straining your resources to survive. One of those budget balances is cost. Whether that be staff, supplies, shipping, etc. One of the ways to keep those costs down is through consolidating your shipping.
So many items need to be shipped out during the season, but you don’t want to buy too many trucks to deliver; otherwise, you start racking up costs. Instead, it’s a good idea to have an automated system that tracks your orders, when they should be delivered, and what method of delivery is expected. That way, you can have more control and strategic deliveries to minimize trips from your business
7. Keep Communication Open
As mentioned earlier, creating clear expectations for your customers is an important part of your business, especially for the holidays. But clear communication doesn’t only apply to before purchase or when something goes wrong, it’s for every time!
Open communication looks like keeping your customers engaged with deals and sales you may have, or letting them know about an event happening soon. Clear communication is also keeping them up to date on their orders, letting them know what their delivery ETA should be, and where their delivery is at so far.
8. Utilize Technology at Every Step
As technology advances, so too does commerce. From catalogs to TV shopping channels to online marketplaces, business has transformed drastically in just the past century, and with current technological advancements, it looks to be changing even faster. Take AI, for example. As noted previously, you can utilize this technology to help forecast how the holiday season will go. However, it can also be utilized in other systems, such as purchase orders and inventory, among others!
Automation and robotics have also helped in making businesses more efficient and cost-saving by allowing machines to accomplish simple tasks like sorting, loading and unloading, and palletizing. It’s even gone on to do harder tasks like driving real semi trucks around the country! But remember, staying with your budget is key, so you will need to weigh the pros, cons, and costs of technology with other options like staffing, supplies, or even just doing it yourself!
9. Extend Returns
At a time when so many people are buying gifts, some will realize that what they got might not be the best option. Thus, they try to return these items to the retailers from whom they got them. Now every store has its own return policies and what can and cannot be returned under certain conditions. During the holiday season, however, some businesses decide to change their return policy to give shoppers more time to return their purchases. Whether this is just a simple extension of time or setting a date farther out into the next year, it allows customers to be flexible and change their minds even after purchase.
Unfortunately, this also means more work for you. Thus, planning for how your returns policy works is essential, and how you handle the returned inventory. Sometimes an item is unused and can go back on the shelves. Other times, it can’t be like food or sealed goods that have been opened. You can also decide to keep your return policy the same and deal with a lower amount of returns. However, this may upset some customers and harm customer loyalty in the long term if flexibility isn’t offered in your returns system. This doesn’t mean it’s required to change your return policy for the holidays, but it does mean that you need to consider how you entice and keep customers and differentiate yourself from the rest of the competition.
10. Utilize Incentives and Keep Customers Hyped
The holidays are the biggest time for deals. With Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and lots of semi-annual sales going on, you need ways to let people know who you are and what you have to offer. Marketing yourself online through ads and social media is a great way to get the word out about your business. Look into strategies of what does well on social media, as it’s always changing, especially with AI and algorithms in the mix.
Another idea is to make an incentive system for your shop. This way, you can attract customers to shop with you and keep them coming! Whether it be points or coupons, you can shape how it works and how often you do it. Testing out how incentives function is also good, as you can see what systems work and what don’t sustain engagement for your business.
With the holiday shipping season fast approaching, getting a start on your holiday shipping is imperative work. Better to start early and be prepared rather than later and chaotic. That way, you can ensure the best for you, your business, and your customers!
