Welcome to the holiday shipping season, 2018 edition. Record low unemployment and rising consumer expectations continue to put more pressure on the direct to consumer logistics chain. Those and other issues framed the season from an operations standpoint, but now the only issue is getting the orders shipped.
As I take a short break to catch up on these notes it looks like IDS is on track to more than double the number of orders shipped on Black Friday compared to 2017. We will likely exceed 50,000 orders a day for at least some of this period. As most of our clients have reasonably complex orders or programs with large order sizes, complex inventories, and/or premium presentation standards this increase brings many challenges. Our staff has worked hard prepare for this with commensurate levels of stress added. Overall, a reasonably good start, although we are struggling in a few areas still, at least to the standards we have set. Many of our clients do not have a seasonal nature to their business and of course they want see a continuation of our normal performance. Others are hitting 3-5 times their standard sales and want those wonderful Facebook likes and comments for fast shipping and great looking orders to set up for 2019 success.
More as the week unfolds, but welcome to the trenches of Black Friday!
