Avoid these mistakes this holiday season: A guide from SPS Commerce

by | Oct 8, 2024 | Data Management, Order Fulfillment, Suppliers

The holidays are a hectic time for all businesses, no matter your size or output. As sales go up, suppliers face increased channel traffic, spikes in orders and difficulty managing downstream partner challenges. Already dreading this year’s holiday rush? By selecting the right technology to avoid mistakes and help you stay ahead of these obstacles, your business can thrive during the holiday season, confidently.

Avoid these three seasonal mistakes by taking the proper steps with some help from SPS Commerce.

Mistake 1: Your team isn’t ready

Your employees are the backbone of your business. They’re the ones who handle a majority of the obstacles that a holiday rush brings. It’s more important than ever to ensure your team has everything they need to meet all seasonal expectations and deadlines efficiently. But if they aren’t well-prepared for what’s ahead, your business could struggle with a sudden influx of orders.

Equip your team with the tools and training they need to streamline order processes, optimize channels and analyze critical data. When they can leverage solutions to improve automation, item data and sell-through metrics, your employees can take the first step toward a successful holiday season and confidently handle the uptick in demand.

How we help you accelerate team readiness

With a range of solutions and product features from SPS Commerce, your team can prepare in advance, way before orders start to ramp up. These solutions can work alongside the systems you already use to help your business keep up with demand.

  • SPS Commerce Fulfillment increases the efficiency of your entire order process by making it faster and easier to manage a large volume of sales. Fulfill and invoice multiple orders at once with batch order processing, set up defaults to reduce manual keystrokes with auto-sourcing and streamline the process of acknowledging orders with quick-send and auto-send acknowledgment capabilities. These standard features help employees stay on top of increasing order volume while boosting accuracy and speed.
  • SPS Commerce Assortment ensures you can seamlessly provide and update item data for your customers, so your team receives orders with accurate product information that will reduce order processing delays.
  • SPS Commerce Analytics delivers the sell-through data your team needs to make smart supply adjustments and use prior-year performance to predict trends for the upcoming holiday season.

When you combine these solutions, SPS Commerce offers everything your employees need to stay ahead of the seasonal rush.

Mistake 2: Your partners are unprepared

Your partners (including retailers, 3PLs and warehouses) are essential to your holiday success, so lines of communication must remain clear and consistent. When your trading partners can’t get accurate data about your orders, it can lead to delays, shortages and a compromised customer experience.

Ensure your partners get accurate information, but also remember to consider their systems and best practices. When you talk with your partners, learn their equipment and onboarding processes so that you can determine the best ways to stay connected during the holidays.

How we help you keep partners prepared

With best-in-class solutions that keep data flowing between thousands of businesses, SPS Commerce can help your organization improve how it communicates with its entire partner network.

  • Fulfillment features reporting and visibility capabilities to help you monitor transactions and track documents from trading partners so you can manage and avoid any issues that may arise. It also streamlines communication to ensure a consistent, accurate flow of information so all partners know what to expect and when.
  • Assortment makes it easier to transmit accurate product information to your retailers and gives consumers accurate details about the products they’re ordering.
  • Analytics data uncovers holiday insights to help you set the right expectations with your partners for product volume, mix and more.

SPS Commerce offers the solutions that make the transfer of data smoother between partners, so holiday planning and execution can continue without roadblocks.

Mistake 3: You don’t have a “Plan B”

Here’s the best-case scenario: your product is wildly popular this holiday buying season, flying off the shelves across every channel! Woohoo! But now the downside: Your retail partners need more product to satisfy the remaining demand, and your preferred carrier is having issues meeting shipping expectations. While it’s not your fault that your shipping partner has challenges, it’s still your responsibility to come up with another option.

It’s impossible to plan for all the emerging contingencies that could come up over the holidays, but having a general backup plan in case something unexpected happens can keep your business moving forward despite unseen setbacks. First, think about some of the pain points around shipping and supply, and whether you have alternate partners or practices that you can rely on if a key element breaks down.

How we help you create “Plan B” before you need it

With products and services that give your business maximum flexibility and oversight, SPS Commerce can help you make a clear contingency plan for unexpected holiday challenges.

  • Fulfillment provides actionable insights and workflow that help you manage orders and understand which ones are ready to ship or invoice, so you can prioritize your time and create strategies to stop those problems before they start.
  • Assortment delivers a way to share item data to help you avoid errors and ensure your backup plans are feasible.
  • Analytics gives you a roadmap from prior years that can help you avoid pitfalls in supply and shipping while planning for what comes after the holidays.

By combining the capabilities of each solution from SPS Commerce, your business can stay ahead of holiday challenges. Together, our solutions form a purpose-built suite that can improve not only your holiday performance, but also your year-round efficiency.

A successful holiday season begins today! Contact SPS Commerce.

Emily Curran
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