Peak 2025 Checklist: Your Complete Preparation Guide

Peak season is almost upon us again, and if previous years have taught us anything, it’s that preparation makes all the difference.

The National Retail Federation forecast that retail sales during 2025 will grow between 2.7% and 3.7% over 2024 to between $5.42 trillion and $5.48 trillion, while UK retail sales will reach £599.07 billion ($744.87 billion) in 2025 – with just under a third (30.7%) of spending taking place online. 

The opportunity is massive, but so is the competition. This year’s peak season brings some new and familiar challenges, with delivery costs increasing, supply chain disruption continuing to complicate operations, and Black Friday and Cyber Monday purchase volumes expected to climb.

Planning is vital to succeeding in the “golden quarter” which is non-stop from now until next year. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and each stage of Q4 comes with its own priorities. 

We’ve compiled this comprehensive checklist based on our experience supporting hundreds of brands through peak seasons. 

Whether you’re preparing for your first major peak or your tenth, these 11 steps will help you turn the busiest time of year into your most profitable.

First, Mark Your Dates

Big shopping days Black Friday and Cyber Monday grab all the headlines, but the weeks between late November and early January are packed with shopping opportunities that many brands overlook.

Not every date will suit your business model, but understanding the full peak calendar helps you identify chances to capture additional revenue when your competitors are taking a breather.

• Friday, 28 November 2025 – Black Friday: Still the heavyweight champion of retail, driving massive traffic spikes and testing your entire operation in a single day.
• Saturday, 29 November 2025 – Small Business Saturday: Perfect timing for smaller brands to shine while big retailers are still recovering from Friday’s chaos.
• Monday, 1 December 2025 – Cyber Monday: Online-focused shopping reaches fever pitch, with mobile sales dominating and discount expectations at their highest.
• Saturday, 14 December 2025 – Free Shipping Day: The retail industry’s coordinated push to capture shoppers who’ve left gift-buying dangerously late.
• Saturday, 21 December 2025 – Super Saturday: Panic Saturday arrives – your final realistic chance for standard Christmas delivery before everything shifts to premium services.
• Wednesday, 25 December 2025 – Christmas Day: Surprisingly active for online sales as people browse for Boxing Day deals and use new devices to shop.
• Thursday, 26 December 2025 – Boxing Day: UK retailers’ biggest post-Christmas opportunity, with consumers ready to spend gift money and hunt for deals.
• Monday, 6 January 2026 – Peak Returns Week: The inevitable aftermath – when gift recipients discover sizing issues and start the exchange process in earnest.

Lock Down Your Supply Chain Early

Your suppliers are about to enter their busiest period of the year, and their lead times will reflect that pressure. What takes 2-3 weeks in July might need 6-8 weeks by October – and that’s assuming everything runs smoothly.

Ideally, peak season isn’t when you source stock, but rather when you sell the stock you sourced months earlier. 

Here’s what to check off the list:

• Domestic suppliers: Place final peak orders by mid-September
• International suppliers: Order immediately, paying close attention to delivery times and building in contingency
• Backup suppliers: Identify and establish relationships with backup options now
• Quality checks: Inspect samples early to avoid any awkward last-minute quality issues
• Payment terms: Negotiate favourable terms while you have leverage

You’ll also need to align stock with your marketing campaigns – there’s little sense in over-investing in products you don’t have adequately stocked. 

The good news? You’ll reap the rewards of early planning. Q4 success often hinges on expert long-range stock planning, particularly surrounding your bestselling items. 

Design Your Marketing and Promotional Strategies

Marketing is fundamental to Q4 success. Your fulfilment operation is also intimately tied to your marketing efforts, so it’s vital to align the two. 

For example, many brands generate a considerable portion of their profits from a few highly promoted product lines. These need to be stocked and ready to fly out of the doors. 

Consider that modern consumers seek value propositions that extend beyond traditional discounts. We’re talking early access for loyal customers, exclusive bundles that solve multiple problems, or personalised offers based on their shopping behaviour. 

Your promotional calendar needs to account for the different stages of peak, from the traditional peak to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and so on. Early shoppers start browsing in October, while others wait for last-minute deals. Design campaigns that capture both segments without cannibalising your margins.

Study your competitors’ previous peak strategies and monitor their current activities. Don’t be caught off guard by a competitor’s aggressive pricing when you’ve planned conservative discounts. 

Map out your campaigns months in advance, build them into your systems early, and test everything before the traffic arrives.

Perfect Your Demand Forecasting

Accurate demand forecasting separates successful peak seasons from expensive disasters. 

Get this wrong, and you’ll either watch competitors capture sales you can’t fulfil or tie up cash in inventory that won’t move until next year’s clearance sales. Finding yourself stuck with excessive, slow-moving stock can take the gloss off your successes. 

If you’re trading your second peak season or beyond, mine every data point from previous years:

• Which products spiked first? 
• What drove your biggest single-day sales? 
• When did demand patterns shift? 

If you find that certain product(s) tend to sell out too early, that’s a key indicator that you need to prepare better this time around. 

Layer your analysis with external variables. Are you launching new products? Expanding into new markets? Increasing marketing spend? 

Each change affects demand patterns and requires forecast adjustments. Collaborate with your 3PL partners during this process – experienced fulfilment providers offer valuable insights from working with similar brands and can stress-test your assumptions before you commit to large inventory investments.

Clear Out Slow-Moving Stock

Q4 presents the perfect opportunity to shift slow-moving inventory, which is a key tactic retailers employ for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Flash sales during early Q4 are a great way to acquire and engage customers while tactically moving stock ahead of the true peak. 

Consider transforming slow or dead stock into value-added propositions. Bundle slow movers with bestsellers, include them as surprise gifts with premium purchases, or create themed collections that reframe old products in fresh contexts. 

The goal isn’t to maximise profit on these items – it’s to convert storage costs into cash flow.

Strategic clearance beats random discounting. Analyse which slow-moving products complement your peak performers or could enhance your promotional offers during major shopping events.

Plan Your Storage Requirements

Most brands underestimate the space requirements when order volumes triple overnight. 

Whether you’re operating from a spare room or managing a dedicated warehouse, peak season demands more capacity and better organisation.

Inadequate storage will only crank up the pressure. Orders tend to get mixed up, products suffer damage, picking becomes inefficient, and your team struggles. 

Calculate space requirements and consider whether your current space can handle the workflow intensity peak season demands. This needs to be done as early as you can, as many other businesses will also be scaling up their storage, which can lead to shortages. 

Optimise Your Website Performance

Your website faces its biggest test during peak season, and website crashes have become almost routine.

Major retailers, including Costco and Lego, experienced outages during 2024’s Black Friday, losing millions in potential revenue. They buckled under the weight of their marketing campaigns’ success – an incredibly frustrating way to lose sales. 

Some performance checks to run now:

• Load testing: Use tools like GTmetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights to test current speeds
• Traffic simulation: Run stress tests to see how your site handles 5x normal traffic
• Mobile testing: Check mobile loading and usability scores
• Payment gateway testing: Ensure all payment options work as they should, with no hold-ups during the critical checkout phase

Aside from speed and reliability, check your user experience:

• User journey flow: Can customers find and buy products in under three clicks?
• Product page clarity: Clear pricing, stock levels, and delivery information are visible immediately
• Checkout streamlining: Remove unnecessary form fields and offer guest checkout options
• Mobile experience: Test every step on actual devices – with nearly 80% of UK eCommerce sales taking place on smartphones, your mobile journey must be flawless
• Search functionality: Ensure your site search works when customers can’t browse leisurely
• Payment methods: Make sure you offer modern payment methods; Shop Pay, Stripe, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, etc

Work with your development team or web agency now to address any issues – you don’t want to be fixing website problems when you should be processing orders.

Master Your Social Media Strategy

Social media becomes your most powerful tool during peak season, when both organic reach and paid performance reach their highest levels in conjunction with increased shopping intent. 

Plan your social calendar around your peak season and the shopping days/themes you want to target. Shoppers are already browsing Instagram and TikTok for gift inspiration in October, while last-minute buyers rely on social proof and urgency-driven content in December. Create content that works natively on each platform and conduct in-depth research on trends and audiences. 

Social commerce becomes even more valuable during peak season. According to DHL research, 60% of millennials purchase through Facebook, while 34% of Gen Zers use TikTok for shopping – so consider building out these channels if you didn’t in 2024. 

Prepare for Customer Service Intensity

Peak season multiplies customer enquiries across every channel – pre-purchase questions, order status updates, delivery concerns, and returns processing. 

Unprepared customer service teams quickly become overwhelmed, risking your customer experience spiralling out of control. You don’t want to create negative experiences during your most important sales period.

Delivery communication understandably becomes hugely important. Clear communication about delivery options and realistic timeframes prevents disappointment and reduces the volume of enquiries.

Here are some common peak season enquiries and how to handle them:

• “Where’s my order?” – Set up automated tracking emails and SMS updates. Make it as easy as possible for customers to track their items by clearly signposting tracking numbers and tools.
• “Will this arrive by Christmas?” – Display clear cut-off dates on product pages and checkout. Update these daily as deadlines near.
• “I need to return this gift” – Prepare extended returns policies and communicate them clearly. Train staff on gift receipt processes and have return labels ready to send immediately.

Scale your support capacity before you need it, attach key info to products and landing pages, and create easy-to-find FAQ resources that address typical concerns. 

This could also be an excellent time to explore AI customer service agents, as they’ve become far more competent, cost-effective, and easy to use this year. 

Set Realistic Delivery Expectations

Building on the above, peak season puts enormous pressure on delivery networks, from the warehouse to the final mile.

Carrier networks operate at capacity during peak periods, making delays more likely and premium services more expensive. You’ll need to work closely with your fulfilment partners here, as they’ll be able to help you set appropriate expectations. 

Moreover, make sure to familiarise yourself with all the last posting dates, especially for overseas deliveries. It’s definitely sensible to estimate on the conservative side for international shipping over Q4. 

You don’t want to spend January supporting customers with international returns because you were overly optimistic with shipping ETAs. 

Build Strategic Partnerships

Peak season has a knack for exposing vulnerabilities in your operation. The bright side is that you can easily plug these with strategic partnerships, so you can dedicate more energy to marketing, sales, customer service, and so on. 

The smartest brands don’t try to do everything themselves. They figure out where they excel and find experts to support any weaknesses or gaps. If you’re brilliant at product development and marketing but your warehouse looks like a disaster zone during busy periods, that’s a clear signal.

Excellent 3PLs can make a world of difference, as they support some of the trickiest processes you’ll have to handle through Q4. They know which carriers perform well during peak periods, how to handle returns efficiently, and what to do when everything goes wrong.

The deadline for striking partnerships decisions is approaching, so consider how you can bolster your operations with professional help and the value it will bring to your business. 

Remember that a stellar Q4 can set you up for year-long success. The partnerships you forge now will put you in good stead ahead of next year. 

The J&J Global Fulfilment Advantage

Peak season preparation isn’t about surviving the rush – it’s about positioning your brand to capture every opportunity Q4 presents. That’s exactly why we’ve designed our entire operation around peak season excellence.

What sets us apart during peak season:

• ControlPort™ Software: Real-time visibility across all operations, from inventory levels to order status, with analytics that help optimise performance
• Global Network: Strategic positioning across five countries means faster delivery times and lower shipping costs, even when domestic networks are overwhelmed
• Scalable Capacity: Infrastructure that adapts to your volume requirements without compromising service quality.
• Fully Managed Returns: Complete returns processing, including inspection, inventory updates, and refund handling – crucial when return volumes triple after major shopping events

The advantage of professional fulfilment only becomes clearer when the pressure mounts. 

When the going gets tough, our systems automatically adapt, scale, and optimise – keeping your customers happy and your business moving forward.

Ready to make peak season your strongest quarter yet? Let’s discuss how J&J Global Fulfilment can deliver the infrastructure and expertise your brand needs to thrive during the busiest time of year.

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