Black Friday & Cyber Monday Sales – The Importance of Choosing a Reliable and Agile Fulfilment Partner 

Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend have become key dates on the global retail calendar, with consumers eager to snap up deals ahead of the festive season. For retail businesses, they represent a significant opportunity to boost online sales, but also present some significant challenges. The influx of orders during this period can be overwhelming, especially for businesses that aren’t fully prepared to meet the uptake in demand.

This is why it is smart to partner with a Third-Party Logistics (3PL) provider (fulfilment partner) who offers the agility and expertise needed to manage your order fulfilment needs in peaks as well as average day-to-day volumes.

The Black Friday Surge in the UK

Over the past few years, Black Friday has become an established global event, starting in the US and with the UK market embracing this retail phenomenon soon after. 

Each year, increasing numbers of shoppers head online to make the most of offers and discounts, pushing e-commerce fulfilment volumes to new levels over ever-extended periods. According to research by Mintel, total sales during Black Friday events in 2023 reached an estimated £13.3 billion, up 7.3% year-on-year. 

Their report also highlighted a key opportunity for retailers to gain a wider customer base. The event helps foster consumers’ discovery of new brands and products, and this focus can help businesses attract new customers, as well as sales from existing followers. It’s worth noting, however, that the report also showed that 84% of UK Black Friday consumers agree that only a positive experience with a new retailer would encourage them to shop there again, outside of the event. 

For retailers, this means one thing: the reliability and quality of their logistics and fulfilment are critical. The upsurge in orders during the Black Friday period can put a significant strain on any retailer – unless they have the right partner in place, with the experience and planning to manage these pressures for them. 

Stock-out issues, order processing errors, delayed deliveries, or customer service bottlenecks can turn – what should be a profitable period for a retailer – into a logistical, client service and reputational nightmare!  

Smart retailers will foresee this, and ensure that, when they choose their fulfilment partner, they choose one with experience and agility – so that all the peak volumes can be handled with ease – whether during Black Friday and Cyber Monday events, or in the lead up to Christmas, sales or other events. Established and technologically driven fulfilment providers have the processes and resources in place to provide this flexibility at a marginal cost to the retailer.  

Here’s how the right 3PL partner can support businesses during Black Friday:

1. Scalability to Manage Order Volumes: One of the greatest advantages of an experienced 3PL provider is its agility. A successful fulfilment business can scale fulfilment operations up and down rapidly and without the added fixed costs to customers, that they would otherwise face themselves. 
   Whether you experience two or ten times increase in orders during Black Friday or any other peak event, a well-prepared fulfilment partner will have the infrastructure in place to handle the upturn in orders without compromising on speed, accuracy or reliability. They already have the required investment in automation, warehouse space, labour, and processes to keep operations running smoothly, under significant pressure.
2. Efficient and accurate order processing: Using sophisticated software, scan technology and robotics for order processing and inventory management significantly reduces the potential for order picking and packing errors to ensure that the right products reach the right customers.
3. Seamless Shipping: Black Friday customers still expect fast delivery, and anything less can lead to dissatisfaction or cancelled orders. A skilled 3PL partner will have a well-established network of relationships with shipping carriers to ensure options for the customer, as well as enhancing the ability to ensure the swift delivery of goods. 
4. Peak Season Staffing Solutions: One of the toughest aspects of Black Friday for retail businesses is the need to scale up staffing levels quickly and temporarily.
   An experienced fulfilment provider will already have a robust system, and the relationships in place, to add temporary staff during peak seasons, ensuring that their fulfilment operations run smoothly and efficiently. By leveraging this flexibility, businesses using the right fulfilment partner avoid the burden of seasonal hiring, whilst still ensuring that they can meet customer demands and expectations.
5. Real-Time Inventory Management: Black Friday – and any peak event – can lead to stockouts if inventory isn’t closely monitored and managed by retailers. Experienced, technology-led 3PLs can provide inventory tracking and seamless integration with e-commerce platforms, giving businesses full visibility over their warehouse stock levels in real-time. This not only helps retailers avoid overselling but also enables faster replenishment, when items run low.
6. Returns Handling: Post-Black Friday returns are inevitable, and businesses need an efficient return management process in place to handle the influx. A strong partner, with the relevant experience, will streamline reverse logistics (returns processing), making it easy for customers to return items and for their retailers to process and restock these quickly and efficiently. 

Why Agility Matters

In today’s dynamic e-commerce landscape, retail agility is key to survival, especially during peak sales periods like Black Friday. The ability of retailers to react quickly to spikes in demand, optimise fulfilment processes and maintain customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, requires a level of flexibility that many businesses simply can’t achieve on their own without significant investment. 

Partnering with an established and technology-led 3PL ensures that your business can respond to the challenges of Black Friday and other peak periods with ease and without significant upfront investment.  Whether it’s handling thousands of additional orders, shipping packages to customers quickly, or managing post-sale returns, the right partnership can make the difference between a successful Black Friday and failure. This is not restricted to the peak event alone – performance during these events can impact retailers’ longer-term reputation and customer loyalty. 

Conclusion 

As Black Friday and other peak events continue to grow in significance in the UK and make up a greater part of the retail calendar, their fulfilment strategy must remain key to planning for these events. 

Those who invest in an established reliable and technology-led fulfilment partner – with sufficient ability to scale – will be well-positioned to meet the demands of their modern consumer, providing a seamless shopping experience from purchase to delivery. In doing so, they will not only maximise sales but also build customer loyalty that lasts long after the Black Friday rush is over, able to remain focused on what they do best!