Canada Post ships around 800 thousand parcels during a holiday weekend. Purolator ships around 46 million packages. Holidays are the busiest time for eCommerce businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, it is not all lilies and roses. From the seller\u2019s perspective, from Thanksgiving to New Year\u2019s, it\u2019s complete chaos, especially with shipping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The short answer – everything. The long answer is down below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Increase in surcharges – Even before the holiday season, you as a founder might find it increasingly difficult to have a solid shipping strategy. This is because your shipping strategy would be determined by the speed of your shipper and the rates that were agreed upon. But, more often than not, there would be a substantial increase in surcharges that would force you to rethink things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Compare the rates from the previous year. Most shipping companies follow a pattern. One can almost always be sure that the national carriers WILL have all kinds of surcharges just before holidays.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No on-time delivery – There is a reason why shipping companies have a timeline for holiday orders. Don\u2019t know what we are talking about? Check the holiday deadline blog post<\/a>. Not delivering orders on time causes trust issues with customers and is a nightmare for founders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let your customers know in advance what the timelines will be like. Honesty really is the best policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lack of Inventory (space and otherwise) – Inventory issues emerge as a result of weak planning. If you plan at a later stage that you need 1000 more of your famous coffee machines, you would have no space to store them, unless you own a warehouse. In Toronto, warehouses usually get filled up pretty quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pre-planning and having a warehouse space ready for last-minute orders is one way to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last-minute shipping – Now that you are at the shipping stage, there would be last-minute orders. Let\u2019s be honest, who doesn\u2019t love that adrenaline rush that comes with last-minute orders? But truthfully, nothing is scarier than prepping for orders and not knowing how would you ship them fast or worse, at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prepare your warehouse in advance. Have a system. Manik from Icy Vinatge shares how they manage things at Icy during the infamous holiday season –<\/p>\n\n\n\nSolution <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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