peak season Archives

Key Takeaways from Supply Chain Decision Makers on Peak Season Outlook

Logistics Trends | By Ross Spanier • 01/06/2022

A recent survey of 200 supply chain management professionals across companies with 500+ employees, conducted by Edelman Intelligence, has found market insights, confidence levels and trends for this peak season and beyond. Let’s look at what the research shows and how it will help your company thrive.

Supply Chain Confidence Remains Strong Despite Slight Setbacks

The survey found a 15% decline from 88% in positive outlooks for a three-month period in March 2021, but the outlook for a year from now, is only 2% lower than the March 2021 reading of 81%. It’s important to also note that this includes a view of whether the supply chain is much worse, worse, about the same, better, or much better than today. The change in outlook also reflects the blips in revenue streams that have arisen from recent months, including the significant container backlogs coming from China and building upon U.S. ports.

Even with that in mind, 85% of those surveyed have a positive view of how their revenue will look in the next year. Only a small fraction, less than 10%, have adverse views of how revenue forecasts will shape up over the next year.

Most Supply Chain Decision Makers Look to Quality 3PL Services for Competitive Advantage

Part of supply chain uncertainty is mitigated through the use of technology, which stands apart as a leading need among supply chain decision makers. The survey found that 8 in 10 decision makers cite the importance of a 3PL company providing cybersecurity measures, easy-to-use technology tools, custom ERP system integrations, access to real-time data, and technology that can be leveraged from desktop or mobile. Other top capabilities supply chain decision makers want when partnering with a 3PL include:

Solutions to help them reach sustainability goals.
Offering consultative guidance in supply chain strategy.
A single point of contact for execution.
Multimodal shipping solutions.
Final mile transportation services.

The Talent Shortage Is Continuing to Make Waves

Another factor uncovered within the survey is not necessarily new, the talent shortage and its effects; 90% of respondents indicated a need to hire more people to meet demands, and maintaining a workforce is the second most anticipated challenge. It’s also interesting to note that this follows only behind the fear of another lockdown. As uncertainty continues, finding and keeping workers is likely going to grow more challenging.

Resource Management Will Be Critical to Meet Demands Through 2022

The survey further found that resource management is top-of-mind for supply chain leaders going into the peak shipping season as well. While this coincides with the talent and driver shortages, it alludes to an increased demand for partnerships and 3PL-like services. The survey found that 94% of respondents feel partnerships with supply chain and logistics companies are necessary to get through peak season. Workforce needs, rising costs, and congestion throughout the industry will continue to exacerbate the issue. Resource management will be critical to doing more with less and avoiding unnecessary waste. Whether that’s wasted time while idling for loading or unloading, wasted miles, wasted packaging, or inefficient processes, those issues are likely to remain prevalent well into 2022.

Hope Is on the Horizon Despite an Above-Average Peak Season

Even with the uncertainty in the market and the higher bar of activity set for the peak shipping season, there is hope on the horizon. The survey found 94% of respondents believe their company’s e-commerce businesses will remain strong despite COVID-19 risks, and 84% realize that reopening and COVID-19 will create unforeseen challenges in managing yet another peak through the pandemic. Ultimately, the results of the pandemic have created a more resilient supply chain, evidenced by 90% of companies feeling more prepared to meet customers’ demands going into peak season than in 2020. Also, 75% expect a higher revenue gain from peak season 2021 than any year prior.

The survey’s findings reiterate the need for a flexible and evolving supply chain. 3PL company partnerships are an integral part of the modern-day supply chain. Together, shippers can derive more value, execute more shipments, and stay more strategic when they have the right partnerships. Click here to view the full report.

As Executive Vice President of Direct Channel at GlobalTranz, Ross Spanier leads the enterprise sales organization as well as the design and delivery of innovative and customized supply chain solutions that drive efficiency, cost savings and competitive advantages for current and prospective customers. With over 15 years of experience in the supply chain and logistics industry, Ross has developed and grown sales and operations teams specializing in best-in-class service execution of LTL, TL, expedite, supply chain management, projects & heavy haul, white glove and managed transportation service lines.

Peak Season Preparations for This Year and Next

Omni-channel logistics | By Ken Fleming • 09/23/2021

E-commerce sales have continued to soar in 2021. The National Retail Federation projects 2021 non-store and online sales will grow 18-23 percent to $1.09-1.13 trillion, and many retailers should expect significantly more e-commerce orders during peak season. With the carrier capacity crunch and other challenges looming large, seamlessly fulfilling all those orders will be no easy task for many merchants.

Unfortunately, shippers that have yet to adequately prepare are now out of time to implement some of the game-changing enhancements that could help them thrive throughout Peak 2021. Most should now be honestly assessing how bad things could get and considering what options may still be available to mitigate some of the challenges and contain damage where possible.

With some careful planning, shippers can use the weeks and months ahead to determine the right solution to navigate future peak seasons, but they need to urgently develop the right now solution immediately.

Peak season’s many fulfillment challenges

Carriers have imposed widespread shipping capacity limitations. Some carriers have stopped accepting new peak season business completely, including some regional carriers. OnTrac, for example, stopped accepting new peak business on September 1, but capacity issues are just one of the carrier-related challenges shippers must overcome.

When shippers can get the carrier capacity they need to get parcels to customers, they still must navigate steadily rising costs. Following suit with other major carriers like FedEx and UPS, even the USPS announced peak season surcharges for 2021, and if not properly managed, the additional fees and rate increases imposed by FedEx and other carriers can prove to be even more costly.

Prioritize peak season prep with parcel shipping data

Merchants’ own parcel shipping data can shed light on the best ways to improve fulfillment this year and in the future. As the unprepared take stock to determine what can still be done to get ready for Peak 2021, parcel shipping data from fulfilment software and business intelligence engines can help them evaluate which adjustments will move the needle most in the short term, and collecting data throughout this peak season can empower all shippers in the new year.

When the calendar year turns, this data can provide the same valuable prioritization insights for shippers seeking the most impactful long-term fulfillment solutions. It can also provide next-level intelligence that most shippers lack when negotiating with carriers to secure better rates and/or more capacity and help them make wise decisions about new initiatives, such as determining the ideal locations in which to onboard supplemental regional, local or gig-economy carriers.

**The right now solution**

Band-Aid solutions can still help partially prepared shippers make the best of what may be a bleak situation, and the range of options available depends largely on just how much preparation has been done. Many unprepared U.S. shippers will rely more than ever on the United States Postal Service (USPS), for example, but this fallback option may prove more costly than in past years.

Thankfully, navigating peak season is not an all-or-nothing proposition, and shippers should lean on their strengths to ease the crunch. Those who have diversified their carrier network to at least include multiple carriers can direct parcel volume to different partners, and multi-carrier parcel shipping technology can help them do this in a strategic and cost-effective manner. Those with business intelligence at their fingertips can consider more than cost to manage the entirety of their parcel shipping needs as effectively as possible.

Merchants may elect to incentivize customers to choose fulfillment options that do not require a national carrier. Shorter shipments sent from local stores can often be executed with regional carriers. This can ease an organization’s order fulfillment burden, as can incentivizing customers to buy online and pick-up in store (BOPIS) for merchants equipped for this type of omnichannel fulfillment. Some merchants may offer aggressive incentives to encourage customers to take advantage of these options or agree to longer delivery times.

Omnichannel retailers like Walgreens, which implemented same-day delivery in under two hours for more than 24,000 retail products, will be tapping into gig economy carriers for additional capacity. This can help offset need for national carrier capacity and drive more sales to existing and new customers.

Shippers who have not yet established these capabilities will need to wait for 2022. For now, they need to take stock of their existing capabilities, determine what’s possible, and solidify plans to pull every impactful lever at their disposal to get through Peak 2021.

Take steps to limit the damage

Every unprepared shipper should think about damage control. Setting clear expectations with customers increases the odds of making them happy and retaining their business, but this strategy also brings drawbacks, such as lost sales. Unprepared shippers need to make tough decisions about how to incentivize customers to happily accept slower delivery times and find ways to get customers to come back in the future, even if they can’t meet those customers’ expectations this time around.

**Do what’s right in 2022**

On January 2, while navigating returns season, shippers should tear off the Band-Aid measures put in place this year as the right now solution and begin to heal their fulfillment processes. They should start planning for peak season right away in 2022 to avoid entering peak season unprepared again. First and foremost, they should secure executive support for the changes that need to be made to implement the right solution and invest in fulfillment processes so they can be readier than ever for Peak 2022. Addressing the need for carrier capacity and cost containment early in the year can free teams up to focus on growing sales and pleasing customers with far fewer fulfillment worries.

Editor’s Choice: Retailers: Is Your Transportation Strategy Ready for Peak Season?

Inventory Management | By Chris Cunnane • 06/04/2020

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This week, Logitsyx Technologies asks if retailers are ready for peak season.

Peak season is always stressful for the retail industry, but the COVID-19 pandemic could create more issues than usual. Retailers can no longer rely on their usual playbooks, with planning cycles completely upended. For example, there is currently as much as an eight-month lead time for goods from China, and most companies haven’t placed orders, waiting to see the extent to which the pandemic will subside and economies will stabilize. And even if businesses place orders today, can suppliers fulfill these orders given the disruptions in their own supply chains?

2020 will yield a very different peak season, with retailers firing marketing engines to promote whatever goods they can get their hands on and even re-marketing unsold spring and summer merchandise as the new “it” items for fall and winter. And will consumers even be willing to shop in-store during peak? Safety and social distancing protocols will remain for the foreseeable future, likely with limits on the number of customers allowed in a store at a given time. It’s conceivable brands will forego big in-store sales to avoid overcrowding and retailers will reduce changing room capacity to enforce social distancing. These shifts in the in-store experience, when combined with anxiety about the virus’s spread, could mean stores of all sizes will experience substantial reductions in foot traffic–and sustained surges in e-commerce orders as a result.

Retailers will have to do their utmost to attract shoppers during this peak season and provide them with a satisfactory buying experience. A key ingredient will be on-time e-commerce order fulfillment, and smart retailers will make sure e-commerce fulfillment operations are scalable and flexible enough to cost-effectively support different order fulfillment processes and satisfy the customer from product discovery to delight.

Now is the right time for retailers to review their transportation strategy and consider the lessons they’re learning during the coronavirus pandemic. For example, is the transportation strategy flexible? Is it scalable? Has it met the demands of this unusual environment? Or are changes necessary?

Here are six opportunities for retailers to optimize their transportation strategy to meet 2020’s peak season challenges.

Click HERE to read the full article.

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