Your Peak Season Sanity Kit for 2025

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Peak season. These two words alone are enough to make retailers both excited and slightly sweaty. As orders fly in, customer expectations soar and delivery networks stretch to their limits, it’s easy to feel like you’re hanging on by a thread.

This Peak Season Sanity Kit is here to keep you calm, collected and ready for whatever the Peak of 2025 throws at you. Think of it as your toolkit for surviving (and thriving) during the busiest shopping weeks of the year, complete with smart delivery hacks, customer service shortcuts and lessons straight from Peak 2024.

So, make a cup of tea, take a deep breath and let’s get your Peak Plan in order.

What’s different in 2025?

Costs have shifted:

UK people costs are rising again (e.g., National Living Wage and NIC changes from April 2025), so scaling service headcount isn’t the answer. Scaling capability is.

Delivery resilience matters more:

Peak periods routinely drive 30-40% higher order volumes, and a single poor delivery can lose a customer. A multi-carrier strategy with unified tracking is now table stakes.

2024 lessons are clear:

Retailers who combined reliable delivery performance, pro-active comms and operational flexibility out-performed peers—start now to bank those gains for 2025.

The Peak Sanity Kit

1. Capacity & Contingency: Multi-Carrier, Not Single-Thread

  • Spread parcels across a diverse carrier network to protect capacity and service levels when weather, strikes or spikes hit.
  • Use rules to shift volume when a lane degrades; don’t wait for backlogs to build.
  • Require one view of tracking across all carriers to keep Customer Services and Ops calm.
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2. Final-Mile Visibility That Deflects WISMO

  • Give shoppers self-serve tracking plus timely exception alerts.
  • Surface ETA at checkout, then mirror that in post-purchase emails/SMS.
  • Use unified “track & trace” to empower CS teams with the same, single source of truth.
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3. Customer Service That Scales (Without Extra Headcount)

  • Set expectations upfront at checkout and in order confirmations.
  • Offer flexible delivery options (home, OOH/collect) to reduce last-minute anxiety.
  • Build a focused FAQ & status hub (cut-off times, returns windows, peak-specific SLAs).
  • Automate pro-active notifications so customers don’t need to ask.
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4. Peak Playbook from 2024 → 2025

GFS’ Peak 2024 wash-up showed GFS customers enjoyed stronger YoY sales and more reliable delivery ratings vs non-customers, citing pro-active comms and flexibility as success factors.

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5. Marketing x Delivery: Countdown Alignment

Coordinate offer drops and email/SMS pushes with carrier capacity (not just warehouse hours). Publish final order cut-offs by service and pin them across PDP, basket, checkout and order emails.

Use a joint Black Friday/Peak countdown plan to keep teams synced.

Deep Dive: Everything you need to know for Peak Season 2024 (planning assets still relevant for 2025 alignment).

6. Returns: The Post-Peak Profit Saver

  • Expect a returns spike—design a fast, self-serve journey with clear status updates.
  • Offer OOH drop-off to reduce friction and processing time.
  • Track return reasons to fix product/content gaps that create preventable returns.

Your 10-Point “Sanity” Checklist

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  • 1

    Is your carrier mix ready? Have you locked in a multi-carrier setup with overflow rules by lane and service?

  • 2

    Do you have one source of truth? Is unified tracking live for Ops, CS and customers (not a patchwork of carrier links)?

  • 3

    Is your checkout smarter? Are convenient delivery options (home, Out-of-Home, Green) visible at basket and checkout with clear ETAs?

  • 4
    Will your comms pro-active? Do you have automated updates for despatch, out-for-delivery, delays and exceptions?
  • 5

    Is your CS team WISMO beware? Have you updated FAQs, status pages and tracking links to cut down on “Where is my order?” enquiries?

  • 6

    Are your ops tuned up? Have you fixed pick & pack bottlenecks, tested label printing, despatch flows and carrier integrations against collection deadlines?

  • 7

    Are you returns ready? Do you have a self-serve returns portal with instant updates and Out-of-Home drop-off options?

  • 8

    Is your exception playbook prepped? What’s your plan if weather, strikes or carrier outages disrupt service?

  • 9

    Have you given your budget a reality check? With people costs rising, are you offsetting with outsourcing, partnerships and automation tech instead of extra headcount?

Proof it works

“Sales volume forecasting is almost impossible for us, but with the flexibility of GFS’ solution, we can satisfy demand even during our busiest periods.”

Patrick Gore, CEO – hampers.com

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Ready to make Peak feel calm (and profitable)?

Scale Customer Service for Peak (without adding cost) → GFS Peak Services.

Speak to a GFS expert about Managed Multi-Carrier Delivery & Returns.