Peak season always turns up faster than people expect. It’s late September now, and the businesses that struggle in December are usually the ones that waited until November to think about space. A bit of planning now saves a lot of stress later.
Start with what happened last year
Pull up your order data from last year and find the busiest week. Then check how much stock you were holding at that point and compare it to what you actually sold. Most businesses find one of two things. Either they ran out of room and stock ended up piled in walkways, or they were left with pallets of product nobody wanted by mid January. Both cost money. Once you know which one is you, the plan gets easier. Add your expected growth on top, but be honest about it. A forecast built on hope isn’t a forecast.
Working out how much space you really need
Count in pallet positions
Square feet can mislead you. Pallet positions are easier to plan with. Work out how many you need at peak, then add a small buffer for when things go wrong, because something usually does.
Don’t forget the awkward stuff
Seasonal packaging, display stands, gift boxes and oddly shaped items all take up more room than people budget for. They don’t stack neatly and they slow down picking. Measure them properly and don’t guess. And if a product line is going to sell out fast, it probably doesn’t need long term storage anyway, it needs a quick route from the dock to the pick face.
Why flexible storage makes more sense than a bigger lease
Your volumes might jump for eight weeks and then fall back. Signing a long lease for space you’ll only fill for two months rarely adds up. Warehousing services from a third party can help here, since you can add space for the peak and hand it back in the new year. You pay for what you use, which keeps fixed costs down. i’d still read the contract carefully for minimum terms and notice periods, because they differ a lot between providers.
People are the bit everyone forgets
Space is only half the problem. You need people to pick, pack and load all that stock, and temporary staff are hard to find in November. Book them early. Agencies fill up quickly and the good workers get taken by whoever asks first. Think about shifts too. Longer hours can get you more from the same space without needing more of it, though tired teams make more mistakes so don’t push it too far.
Train the temps properly
Even a short induction helps. Show them the layout, the scanners and the safety rules before the first day of peak, not during it.
Run a small test before the pressure starts
Pick a quiet day and run a mock peak. Push a few hundred orders through in a short window and see where it jams. It might be the packing benches, it might be the dispatch bay. Small problems are cheap to fix now. The same problems in December turn into late deliveries and angry emails.
Returns arrive whether you planned for them or not
January brings a wave of returns, especially for clothing, gifts and electronics. Set aside an area for them now. Decide who checks each item and how quickly it goes back into stock or gets written off. If returns sit in a corner for three weeks, that’s money doing nothing.
Get a second opinion early
You don’t have to work all of this out alone. If you’d like to talk through what’s realistic for your volumes, the team at SW Group can go through the options with you. It’s much easier to make changes in September than in the middle of December, and honestly, that’s the whole point of starting now.
