Is Your Logistics Team Ready for the Holidays?

When it comes to the busy shipping season around the holidays, it’s never too early to start preparing. It can become too late, however — and that time is coming fast. At this point, you (hopefully) have materials and products sourced, and your warehouses and distribution centers are steadily filling up.

The priority for your supply chain right now should be to ensure you have the resources and partners in place to execute on-time deliveries. This means having access to truck capacity and reliable carriers so that you can continue to make deliveries consistently and cost-effectively as peak shipping season ramps up.

What happens during this peak period that makes shipping so difficult?

This time of year, with demand for logistics services spiking, rates usually trend upward, and carriers become harder to find for several reasons. Luckily, this happens predictably, so there is no excuse for a logistics operation to be caught unprepared.

The typical market pressures that increase during the peak holiday shipping season can include:

• Competition for carriers goes up—raising rates and making it harder to find trucks.
• Weather, congestion, and more frequent facility closures make delivering harder and less reliable.
• Lead times shrink as the need for faster deliveries in tighter windows increases.

And by the way, even if your peak season does not occur during the holidays, your shipping will still be affected. Tight capacity and higher rates will still impact the freight rates you pay and your ability to find trucks.

What should you do to prepare for peak shipping season?

While the challenges that come with peak season are often similar each year, the severity and the precise timing will be shaped by the trends in the shipping marketplace at the time. Right now, for example, it’s still a buyer’s market for freight services overall. So, carriers are looking to compete for your business. That said, the market is already tightening up, and companies need to have a plan.

Here are four ideas for preparing your logistics operation to minimize the impact of the peak holiday shipping season regardless of the other market conditions at the time.

1. Review last year: A look back at how your logistics operations performed last holiday season can be very helpful because it can illuminate problems you should try to avoid moving forward. This can include reviewing carrier performance to identify providers that frequently were late or had a high percentage of OS&D issues. You should also look for lanes where it was hard to find carriers or where rates were higher than you were expecting. For some companies, this sort of freight analysis is difficult or even impossible due to a lack of access to data. But keep reading because we’ll offer some ideas below.
   
   
2. Put contingencies in place: Armed with freight analytics, you can set a plan to find more trustworthy carrier partners. It’s possible you have not properly vetted carriers in the past, so that should be a point of emphasis. Extra attention should also be paid to product types, lanes, or modes in which your costs were highest. That said, finding and vetting carriers to be sure they are trustworthy and offer good rates during crunch time is not easy for many companies to do alone.
   
   
3. Make shipping easier: The best and fastest option to help your operation could be freight broker or service provider, like Loadsmart. For a quick change and scalable solution, a digital brokerage like Loadsmart’s can ensure market-appropriate rates through their national network of vetted carriers and access to trucks year-round (not just during peak). Well-resourced brokers can flex with the normal ups and downs of the freight market throughout every season. As market experts, the challenges you feel in your logistics operation are the problems they solve daily.
   
   
4. Gain control and visibility with technology. Quality brokers should offer great technology that supports your operations through busy times as well. For example, ShipperGuide TMS gives companies tools to track the location of shipments and the delivery performance of their logistics operation. Tools like these help to eliminate most of the manual tasks, such as filling out and shuffling paperwork and all the unnecessary phone calls/ emails of shipping that many companies deal with. And, armed with the data and reporting from ShipperGuide TMS, you can be sure each year will be better than the last.

It's not too late to have a successful peak shipping season in 2024

Peak holiday shipping season is here, but it is not too late to build a more resilient logistics operation. Getting set up with Loadsmart brokerage service is fast, and you’ll experience the benefits immediately.

Here are some of the advantages offered to Loadsmart’s customers right away:

• A quick start-up so you can begin shipping using our vetted carrier network fast — our logistics experts are ready to help.
• A free, easy-to-use online booking website to manage all the details of your shipping operations.
• Access to thoroughly vetted local and national carriers and guaranteed rates across the entire network.
• Cost containment and the ability to compare rates and delivery times for multiple shipping modes, including truckload, LTL, and drayage.
• Online shipment tracking in real-time, so you always know the location of your shipments.
• Available 24/7 support for your shipping operations.
• The advanced analytics reporting and AI capabilities of ShipperGuide TMS to support strategic decision-making that will ensure smoother logistics operations even after peak season.

It’s almost too late to make 2024 your best holiday season yet — but there is still time. Contact Loadsmart to leverage our experience, carrier relationships, and technology to smooth out the highs and lows of what we know is going to be a busy shipping season.