The End-of-Year Checklist for Your Warehouse

What does the holiday season bring for you? Is it joy and festivity, a boost for your business, or is it overwhelming and stressful? If you’re in the latter category, you’re not alone. The holiday season, especially for logistics professionals, can be extremely stressful. In this article we’ll give some practical advice to help you smooth the edges of a potentially difficult season and help you prepare for a successful holiday season!  

When does the holiday season start?  

The holiday season can start as early as September for some consumers, with the height of shopping occurring in mid-November. It’s never too late to give your warehouse the tools to be successful this season. The general checklist we recommend includes:

Forecast sales

Prepare your space

Use tech to your advantage

Get your employees ready

Make back-up plans

Create an effective debrief

Forecast Sales  

The best way to know what is going to happen this peak season is by deeply understanding what happened last year. Use your data from previous years to create projections of overall sales and identify high selling SKUs. This will help determine what inventory to increase. Keep an eye on items that are trending this year to avoid being caught off guard.

Prepare your space

Optimizing your warehouse for efficiency, reducing bottlenecks, and improving safety is one of the best ways to prepare your business for the holiday season. We’ll discuss several ways to do this.  

First, consider creating more pack stations. This allows you to have more employees have their own space to work and finish packing parcels for shipping. If you’re hiring seasonal workers, make sure they’ll have space to work, too. Second, use the data you’ve collected from previous years to identify high selling SKUs. Then, move those items to eye level and easy to access locations. The third way to improve your warehouse space is to create a designated space for ‘problem orders’. Having a separate area for orders that need extra attention allows your employees to move through non-problem orders more quickly without having to take time to focus on the problem orders. Then, just designate one or two experienced employees to focus solely on orders that have issues.  

Use tech to your advantage

Embracing technology during the peak season may seem risky but, in reality tech is one of the best tools to increase efficiency during this busy time. warehouse management software (WMS) is a type of tech specifically designed to improve workflows. Key features that can help improve workflows include automated batch printing, custom business rules, pick and pack, address verification, and kitting and bundling. ShipCaddie TWMS is one example of this type of software that has all these features and offers an unlimited number of users, allowing each employee to have their own access!  

Get your employees ready  

The influx in workload at your business’ warehouse will put a lot onto your employee’s shoulders. Hiring seasonal workers may be a great way to help meet this demand. Two major recommendations for hiring seasonal workers:. First, create a comprehensive training program before employees are hired. This should include information on completing their daily tasks and staying safe in a warehouse environment. These are especially important because seasonal workers may not have as much experience working in a warehouse environment. Second, use your permanent staff effectively. Reposition your permanent workers to be in more complex roles. For example, assign your permanent workers to work on problem orders, returns, or inventory management. This is helpful because they will have warehouse experience and can better manage more complex tasks, which allows your seasonal employees to focus on order fulfillment.  

Make back-up plans  

Unexpected challenges are bound to happen during the peak season. It can be extremely difficult to overcome challenges in the height of the season, so creating backup strategies is a great way to keep afloat.  

Let’s go through an example. Say you primarily rely on a single supplier for a certain product or product line. If this line is a top seller during the holiday season, it is vital that it does not go out of stock. There should be a backup plan to avoid this. First, it should be communicated with that supplier to understand what their contingency plans are and if they have a diversified supply chain in place. Second, if possible, source this product from other sources as well. This will help you to adjust if one supplier is unable to meet your customer’s demands. Identifying which SKUs are sourced from the least diverse supply chains will also help you formulate your strategy.  

Create an effective debrief  

The clearest insight into the successes and failures of the peak season will be apparent at the beginning of the year. So, logisticians should kick off the new year by debriefing the season and creating a checklist for next year. Gather data insights from your software, employees, and executives. Use this information to create a checklist for yourself and your team for next year. Because the industry changes constantly make sure to update it when you’re closer to the season.  

The single heaviest online spending day is Cyber Monday, just a little over a week away! If you’re still getting ready or thinking about how to make next year go more smoothly, use this checklist as a starting point. If you’re looking for more in-depth advice and strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out!