Get ready! Black Friday and Cyber Monday will soon be upon us. While TAGG’s distribution clients (business-to-business) have all been shipping product over the last several months to get distribution centers and retail stores stocked and ready, our e-commerce clients are just getting warmed up. It won’t be long until holiday shoppers begin hitting e-commerce sites with orders. Those of us in the e-fulfillment world know what that means – TAGG’s same day shipping still applies, only order volumes go through the roof! The only way this gets done is planning. We have been reaching out to all our e-commerce clients looking at order volumes for the previous year and getting their best guess on where volumes will be this year. We not only look at total e-commerce volumes, we look at order patterns to determine what weeks/days are the peaks and where, if any, the valleys will be for us to restock and re-supply.
Communication is key. Open channels between our warehouses and our clients ensure that TAGG’s e-commerce fulfillment will be ready. Over the last several weeks we have been receiving inputs on e-commerce volumes and have translated that into what staffing levels need to be, what extra packaging materials are needed and what extra pick-up/coordination with our carriers is needed. A customer’s experience over the Holiday Season can set the tone for other orders throughout the year. There is significant stress on the supply chain during this time of increased order volume. Make sure you have a e-fulfillment partner that knows how to prepare. For those of us in e-commerce fulfillment, instead of Ho…Ho…Ho it’s Plan…Plan…Plan!
