Peak Season Fulfillment Planning

When the Calendar Starts Dictating Your Stress Level

Peak season has a way of revealing the truth about your operation. All year long, small inefficiencies hide in the noise. In November and December, they step into the spotlight. A receiving delay becomes a backlog. A slotting mistake becomes a mispick spiral. A staffing gap becomes a missed SLA. Peak season fulfillment planning is how brands stop treating holiday demand like an annual panic attack and start treating it like a planned, predictable cycle.

Customers do not care that your volume doubled or tripled. They only care that gifts arrive on time and in good condition. Marketplaces do not care that your team worked late. They only care that you met ship windows. Retail partners do not care that carriers were overloaded. They only care that appointments were kept. Planning is what separates brands that survive peak from brands that grow through it.

Why Peak Season Breaks Unprepared Operations

Under normal volume, even imperfect workflows survive. During peak, small cracks widen. Inbound freight stacks up. Workers spend too much time searching for SKUs. Inventory accuracy drifts just enough to cause cancellations. Carrier pickups get missed because staging is behind. The root cause is rarely lack of effort. It is lack of preparation.

Maureen Milligan, Director of Operations and Projects at G10, hears these stories every year from brands leaving other providers. She explains that "most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and meeting the committed requirements." Peak magnifies each of those problems.

Forecasting: The First Line of Defense

Peak season planning begins months before the rush. Forecasts should account for historical patterns, promotional calendars, marketplace expectations, and planned restocks. Forecasting gives operations time to plan staffing, slotting, and inbound scheduling.

Holly Woods, Director of Operations at G10, makes the timing clear. She says that "we start planning peak times months ahead of time. We run forecast models, staffing models, and we audit inventory." Those audits catch slow movers that should be relocated, fast movers needing better placement, and low stock items that could create preventable stockouts.

Staffing Models Designed for Surges

Peak season does not simply increase volume. It changes the daily rhythm. Orders cluster around promotions, weekends, and shipping cutoffs. A good staffing model accounts for these spikes instead of spreading labor evenly across weeks.

G10 builds staffing plans that combine full-time staff, temporary labor, and cross-trained team members who can flex between pick, pack, receiving, and special projects. That flexibility keeps the operation balanced instead of letting one department collapse while another stands idle.

Slotting and Layout That Support Peak Velocity

Warehouse layout matters more during peak than at any other time. High-velocity SKUs must live near pack stations. Frequently purchased bundles must be slotted together. Aisles must be wide enough to support increased traffic. Seasonal items need dedicated zones with fast replenishment paths.

ChannelPoint WMS uses historical pick data to recommend slotting changes before peak begins. Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment, reinforces the importance of disciplined movement. "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper." Clean data creates reliable slotting. Reliable slotting reduces walking, errors, and fatigue during the busiest days of the year.

Receiving That Keeps the Flow Moving

Peak preparation includes tightening inbound processes. If inbound freight is not received quickly and accurately, the entire operation slows. Pallets linger in staging. Inventory becomes available too late. Workers trip over unsorted freight.

G10’s inbound planning aligns supplier schedules with receiving labor. Appointment windows prevent pileups. ASNs reduce surprises. Inbound mistakes detected early do not become inventory mysteries later.

Automation That Expands Capacity

Robotics and automation matter most when demand spikes. Zebra autonomous robots at G10 shorten pick paths and reduce walking. Holly notes that the robots "are allowing efficiency with pick paths. They are lowering fatigue on employees." That endurance matters. Workers who would be exhausted after a few hours can maintain steady performance across long shifts.

Automation also absorbs some of the surge that would otherwise require more temporary labor. Robots do not need training sessions, breaks, or supervision. They simply run.

Carrier Coordination and Cutoff Management

Peak season is also peak chaos for carriers. Transit times vary. Trailers arrive late or fill early. Some lanes degrade. Carrier communication becomes essential. G10 monitors carrier performance and adjusts routing logic when lanes start missing commitments.

Cutoff times are enforced through automation, not wishful thinking. Orders arriving before cutoff are processed. Orders arriving after cutoff queue for the next wave. This protects SLAs instead of letting unrealistic expectations produce rushed, error-prone work.

Multi-Node Advantage During Peak

A multi-node network is a huge advantage during peak. When orders can ship from several regions, transit times shrink and zone costs fall. More importantly, volume is distributed. One building does not carry the entire holiday burden.

G10’s network across South Carolina, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas allows orders to route from the nearest available node. ChannelPoint handles this automatically, preventing the operational overload that comes from forcing all orders through a single building.

Exception Management That Prevents Backlogs

During peak, exceptions pile up faster. A few mispicks, missing SKUs, or damaged cartons can create spirals. Exception management must be proactive. G10 monitors exception dashboards in real time so that supervisors can intervene before issues accumulate.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience, explains that returns and edge cases follow clear rules: "It looks good, we are going to restock this, or it looks damaged, we are going to either dispose of it or put it in a quarantine area." That clarity prevents exceptions from clogging the system when speed matters most.

Planning for Customer Communication

Peak season creates pressure on customer support. Brands that communicate clearly about cutoff dates, delivery windows, and delays avoid many inbound tickets. G10’s real-time visibility helps. Connor notes that clients "can see their daily orders, they can see KPIs, and they can see historical transactions." When brands know exactly where orders stand, they can communicate with confidence.

Peak Season as a Competitive Weapon

Brands that execute peak well do more than survive the holidays. They win new customers, strengthen marketplace ratings, and deepen retailer trust. Brands that struggle lose ground they spend months trying to recover.

Mark Becker, CEO and founder of G10, offers a simple framing. "We are going to grow with them." Peak is where that promise is tested. With the right preparation, planning, and operational discipline, peak season becomes a predictable challenge instead of an annual crisis. If last peak felt overwhelming, now is the time to plan for a very different outcome.