Peak season, spanning October through January, sees record-breaking eCommerce sales and returns, with $35 billion spent online in 2022 alone—a 4% increase from the previous year. To stay ahead, flexible and modular sortation and conveyor solutions, like Tension’s Z-Sort and SLAM systems, can boost throughput, handle product variability, and simplify returns. Discover how automation can help you dominate peak season operations and maximize ROI.
Peak season, or the time frame when retailers handle a large surge in orders, usually runs from October as consumers start to prepare for the upcoming holiday season through January as warehouses are still dealing with high return . This article explores the top five compelling reasons to get prepare for peak season.
Key Figures to Consider for Peak Season Preparation
- $35 billion was spent online during peak season last year, a 4% increase from 2021 and 2% increase from the record-breaking year 2020.
- Cyber Monday was the biggest shopping day of 2022, clocking in more than $11.3 billion in sales.
- Holiday spending continues to increase: Holiday sales grew 5.3% year-over-year to a whopping $936.3 billion in 2022.
The data suggests that neither holiday spending nor online sales show any signs of slowing down, despite reports of decreasing consumer confidence due to inflation.
Top 5 Ways to Prepare for Peak Season
As eCommerce order fulfillment companies prepare for order demand increases with 2023 peak season, consider these top five ways to prepare for peak season (like a boss) with conveyor and sortation systems:
Flexibility for Wide Product Variability
Sorting machines not only take the manual out of your sortation process and lend productivity to your team, sortation equipment can also handle a wide variety of product sizes/shapes/weights that are packaged in things like paper mailers, padded mailers, polybags or polymailers and poly bubble bags.
Expandability for Increased Capacity
Sorters can be designed as a more compact solution to fit into a smaller space and maximize your warehouse footprint. Tension’s Z-Sort can easily be expanded as your business needs grow and evolve, and its adjustable height allows for taller gaylords if needed.
These design features allow you to add more capacity through better use of the floor and vertical airspace in your warehouse, critical considerations during your peak season.
Not-So-Modest-Modularity
In addition to increased capacity needs, sorters can be designed to grow for a changing product mix. The modular design of Tension’s Z-Sort allows order fulfillment centers to easily add on or change layout to accommodate changing warehouse automation needs.
Integration Made Easy
Integrate sorting machines and conveyor systems with new or existing automatic packaging equipment in your eCommerce warehouse or pharmacy fulfillment center. Or, go all out this peak season and boost throughput with a complete SLAM (Scan, Label, Apply and Manifest) solution, featuring an intelligent conveyor system that takes the manual process of processing your packages from order induction through dimension and weight capture all the way to shipping sortation.
Multi-Talented Equipment
Sortation equipment and conveyor systems are also ideal for returns processing. According to the FedEx 2022 Peak Season Report, 1.4 billion or 13% of orders purchased in the 2022 holiday season were returned (a 63% increase year-over-year), and 40% of those accounted for purchases made online. And consumer expectations are overwhelmingly in favor of simple, easy returns: 98% of respondents in this study indicated fast and convenient returns will make them more likely to order again.
Case Study: Achieving a 300% Increase in Throughput during Peak with Tension’s SLAM Solution
Discover how an effective sortation and conveyor solution can lead to significant cost savings and deliver a favorable ROI for your organization. Explore our compelling case study on how Tension’s Slam Solution helped Kredo, Inc. achieve an impressive 300% increase in throughput during peak.
Case Study: An effective sortation and conveyor solution must contribute to cost savings and result in an acceptable ROI for your organization. Read how our customer enjoyed a 300% increase in throughput during peak with Tension’s SLAM solution in our new case study, “How Tension’s SLAM Solution Helped Kredo, Inc., Increase Throughput by 300% During Peak.”
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Contact Us
As your order fulfillment operations navigates both an increase in order demand and the challenge of increased volume of returns this peak season, consider the benefits of a flexible, expandable, modular and easy integrated sortation and conveyor solution (and show peak season who’s boss this year).
Contact us now to get the conversation started.