by Roxana Mihai
Project Manager
The holidays are coming! For the logistics department, the long-awaited effervescence of this season means higher volumes than during any other time of year, multiple inventories for the end of the year, and, unfortunately, sometimes delivery delays.
Christmas, or rather the month of December, is a hectic time for everyone, both professionally and personally. So, how do we handle the challenges of your job, especially if we work in the logistics department? Trying to combine the two worlds without being influenced by the stress that surrounds us, and keeping the holiday spirit even at work, we are, in the end, a kind of Santa help every year.
Until we can enjoy mulled wine and the aroma of freshly baked cakes, the vast majority of us will have to “run” for gifts. If you’re wondering what that means for a logistician, the answer is straightforward. Whether it’s traditional B2B logistics or e-commerce, the “running” becomes the actual running in the warehouse, performing constant “slaloms” between orders, emails, and numerous calls.
So what to expect?
- Large volumes starting in autumn
And when we say large, we mean LARGE.
The beginning of the school year signifies the start of the back-to-school campaign in the warehouse too. Since the beginning of September, when people return from vacation and order more, some even prepare their holiday gifts, the number of orders has increased. Furthermore, stores are replenishing their inventories and preparing to increase the number of orders, sometimes by diversifying their product offerings. Speaking as an online consumer, I believe we can all agree that it is much easier when we can put multiple products in the same shopping cart.
Back to School is followed by the second major campaign of the season, Black Friday. But what has changed in recent years, particularly in light of the pandemic?
Consumers are beginning to understand what it means and prefer the convenience of ordering their favourite products directly from home, avoiding the need for necessary travel. The offers are more numerous, the product variety is much greater online, and the time spent shopping is much shorter.
Immediately after Black Friday, come the two big events of December: Saint Nicholas and Christmas. The season begins on December 1st, with a full deployment of forces for the entire team in the logistics department.
So, what does a logistician do between now and December 24th?
- We request forecasts from customers so that we know what to expect.
- To deal with high volumes, we expand our teams.
- We streamline processes to reduce average order time as much as possible.
- We are preparing to work even harder than before.
- Inventory and results
We all want to end the year debt-free, so in logistics, as in any other business, we make an inventory of all the activities we have undertaken during the previous year and determine whether we won or lost. However, before opening the Excel file, every customer requires an inventory of the physical products they have on hand.
And, for the logistics department, the work done until Christmas Eve will be continued after the holidays on the same principles: staff expansion, process streamlining and, last but not least, increasing the work pace.
Conclusion
As we all know, the pandemic has altered the lifestyle of the e-commerce consumer. Customers’ growing desire to shop online has made it difficult for physical stores to transition to the online environment. They have to reconsider how they conduct business and learn how to address the e-commerce consumer.
The world has moved away from traditional in-store shopping toward online shopping, posing a new challenge for most logisticians.
The entire logistics team always makes the necessary efforts to prepare such large volumes, and we are constantly aware of the importance of on-time delivery because we treat every order as if it were for our families.