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Holiday Packaging for the High-Season

The holiday season is notoriously hectic, it’s almost unavoidable, by preparing well in advance and getting your packaging ready for the high season, you’ll be able to not only fulfil your own needs, but you’ll also be able to pick up where your competitors fail.

The busy period means your customers need orders NOW, any delay is unacceptable, your customers are waiting and ready to post bad reviews online thanks to any delays.

When to Order Holiday Packaging

Last-minute orders are a certainty, whether it be double-wall cardboard boxes or paper mailing bags, you have to be able to fulfil them, while there is no way of predicting demand with 100% accuracy, using the data you’ve got from last year provides a good indication of what you’re likely to need.

This, combined with the general trend of your sales this year can really help, has it sky-rocketed? You’ll need a lot more than last year. Has performance reached a plateau or even dipped? You likely won’t need to increase orders from last year.

Three to four days is the absolute minimum for ordering holiday packaging, and if you’re looking for customised packaging, you should allow for two weeks to ensure you receive it in time.

Packaging Out of Stock During the Holiday Season

Predicting demand with 100% accuracy is impossible, that’s why we say use last year as a guide so at least you’re on the right track.

A great solution to this problem is to choose DS Smith ePack as your packaging supplier, and with low minimum order quantities for standard and custom packaging, you’re able to quickly adapt and be flexible when reacting to the inevitable fluctuations in demand.

Tying up resources in stock that isn’t selling is a waste, aside from the money used for purchasing stock that could be allocated elsewhere, there is the cost of storing it to consider.

This is where the flexibility of low minimum order quantities can really save the day, you need something a bit different? No problem. You need it fast? No problem!

Ordering Packaging for the Holiday Period

Year after year, we find sales & product managers tearing their hair out trying to source packaging in time to meet last-minute or unexpected orders.

Frantic phone calls are a given, and often the scrambling to fulfil orders results in mistakes or unfulfilled orders, meaning that for one reason or another, you lose clients to competitors.

Don’t let that be you.

In order to help you prepare for this hectic period, we’ve compiled a list of the most important dates related e-commerce/retail that are likely to cause problems, meaning you can get a plan put together and have your holiday packaging ready to go!

  • Black Friday: Friday, November 29
  • Small Business Saturday: Saturday, November 30
  • Cyber Monday: Monday, December 2
  • Free Shipping Day: Saturday, December 14
  • Christmas: Wednesday, December 25
  • New Year’s Eve: Tuesday, December 31

Take these important factors into account and you’ll not only be able to fulfil orders from your own customers, but you might even get the opportunity to capitalize on competitors mistakes, and they will make mistakes.

This is a great opportunity to win over some new clients, they won’t forget the mess up made by their previous provider, and how you were able to step in and save the day, so that when the time comes for them to make their next order, you’re in a good position to reach out!

So if you need standard or customised packaging, feel free to get in touch with us at DS Smith ePack, just give us a call on 0808 1787227 or drop us your email and a little about what you need and we’ll get right back to you.

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