2024 Holiday Shipping: Best Practices for Avoiding Delays and Extra Fees

Now that we are in the thick of the parcel peak season, most organizations will be encountering surcharges and seeing a substantial bump in order volumes. An article published by SupplyChainBrain last month indicated that this yearly volume bump is expected to be similar to previous years but the impact may be somewhat muted in sectors that are sensitive to inflation and discretionary spending.

Shipping managers need to be proactive about how they utilize the shipping resources they have at their disposal and explore opportunities to spread out volume in the current and future peak seasons. 

Looking at historical on-time arrival data to see where each parcel provider had the best performance and having contingency plans with your DC’s, suppliers, and vendors to quickly work around any weather-related or operational issues can help manage the increased volume and mitigate its effects.

Past performance of your parcel carriers is usually a good indicator of the future and must be factored into your TMS optimization process so that you are working around the shortfalls of some to take advantage of others, be that one of the large national parcel providers or one of the regional last-mile providers. The risk faced by some industries is more acute than others—for instance, in healthcare where performance may be critical to maintaining patient health.

The peak volumes tend to be generated by consumer goods fulfillment, but end up having wide-ranging effects on the rest of the parcel ecosystem because there is no way to contain the increased workload. This is where regional providers can help pick up the slack by providing a secondary option when national carriers are limiting daily intake. Knowing that carrier selection is critical, shipping managers need to be taking into account where these secondary providers have the manpower to meet service SLA’s during the holiday season.

Contingency plans are also critical to dealing with foreseeable breakdowns within your supply chain. These plans don’t need to be overly complicated. Monitoring safety stock, identifying triggers for taking corrective action, making sure to engage redundant parcel providers for a specific geo-area, and working with the supply chain participants to coordinate responses are all a solid start. 

Having these plans in place will simplify the decision process when an event occurs and speed up reaction times. It is also important to make sure that your resources know what the plans are as well as what their scope of responsibility is while responding to contingencies. If these strategies are well communicated across all parties there will little doubt about what process needs to be followed and ensure a smooth fail-over/fail-back process.

• Stay up-to-date with the latest demand surcharges, holiday schedules, and service alerts (all available on carriers' websites).
• Be proactive. Whether communicating about a larger-than-normal shipment or creating contingency plans, taking action early ensures a smooth process.
• Review data from previous peak seasons. See where you did well and where there is room for improvement, then make any necessary adjustments to improve your operations.
• Encourage customers to order early when possible to avoid delays and increase lead times.