Black Friday may seem far away, but good preparation can't start soon enough! Black Friday can be your best sales day of the year, or your biggest operational nightmare. The difference lies in the preparation. Anyone who only seriously starts preparing their peak season warehouse for Black Friday two weeks in advance will be playing catch-up. In this article, you will read how to get your warehouse ready step by step: from inventory and personnel to systems and contingency plans.
Why Black Friday puts your warehouse to the test
Black Friday and Cyber Monday result in an order volume that is three to ten times higher than on an average day. For a warehouse that normally processes 500 orders per day, this can suddenly rise to 3.000 to 5.000 orders. This peak often lasts only a few days, which means that you must temporarily scale up capacity, staff, and processes without compromising quality.
The problem is not just the volume. It is the combination of high pressure, temporary staff unfamiliar with the processes, and systems not designed for this load. That combination is prone to errors.
Poor preparation is immediately reflected in the results: delayed shipments, higher picking error rates, and a return flow that puts your warehouse under pressure again two weeks later. Customers who receive their Black Friday order late or incorrectly often do not return.
That is why timing is crucial. Start planning 8 to 12 weeks in advance. This gives you enough room to recruit staff, redistribute inventory, and test processes before the pressure hits.
Preparing for the warehouse peak season: where do you start?
The basis of any good preparation is data. Not assumptions, not gut feeling, but concrete figures from the past.
Use data from previous peak periods
Look at last year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday data (or earlier years if you have it). Which product categories peaked the hardest? During which parts of the day did the most orders come in? How much time did it take on average to process an order during the peak versus outside of it?
This historical data is your starting point for forecasting. Combine it with expected growth, new product launches, and marketing efforts to make a realistic estimate of the order volume per day and even per hour.
Create a realistic capacity plan
Based on your forecast, you set concrete goals: what lead time do you want to maintain (for example, orders ready for shipment within 24 hours), what error rate is acceptable, and what on-time shipping percentage do you aim for? These goals determine how much extra capacity, staff, and space you need.
Next, set up a timeline with milestones leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Think of: week -10 recruit staff, week -6 redistribute inventory, week -4 test systems, week -2 perform a dry run. Without these milestones, you run the risk of individual actions interfering with each other in the final weeks.
Do you want to know exactly which KPIs you need to track to measure your progress? View warehouse KPIs you need to measure for a complete overview.
Optimize inventory management and warehouse layout
A well-prepared warehouse starts with the layout. During peak times, seconds count per pick, and a poorly designed layout costs you those seconds time after time.
Adjust slotting strategy for peak volume
Analyze which items are expected to be fast movers during Black Friday: these are often different products from your normal bestsellers. Place these items closer to the packing stations to shorten walking routes. This is called slotting, and adjusting it for peak periods can make the difference between 60 and 90 orders per hour per employee.
Tip: Revise your slotting at least two weeks before Black Friday based on your forecast, not your regular sales data. What is normally a C-item can suddenly become an A-item during a sale.
Also determine a safety stock for your top-selling items. A stockout during Black Friday is particularly painful, because that is precisely when you lose the most revenue. For high-turnover products, cross-docking can be a solution: goods then go directly from receipt to shipment without sitting in the warehouse for a long time.
Additionally, conduct a thorough inventory count before the peak. Discrepancies between your system and your physical inventory are disastrous during Black Friday, as you will not have time to rectify them in the meantime. A cycle count program helps with this structurally; read more about the difference between cycle counting and an annual count in cycle counting versus annual inventory.
Dealing with stockouts and backorders
Despite good planning, an item can still sell out. Ensure your system detects this immediately and automatically takes the item offline or marks it as a backorder, so you do not accept orders you cannot deliver. Communicate backorders clearly to the customer, including a realistic delivery time.
You can find more general tips on inventory management for webshops in webshop inventory management tips.
Getting staff and capacity in order
Even with the best processes and systems, you get stuck if you don't have enough staff. Staff planning is often the biggest bottleneck during peak season.
Recruit temporary staff at least 4 to 6 weeks in advance. Staffing agencies have to handle high demand from multiple clients simultaneously during the weeks around Black Friday, so those who are too late will miss out.
Draw up a shift schedule that accounts for extended opening hours or even 24/7 operations during peak days. Distribute shifts to handle peaks within the day, for example, by adding extra staff around the times when orders come in en masse.
Rapid onboarding of temporary workers
Temporary employees do not have weeks to learn processes. Keep training programs short and practical: focus on the basics of picking, packing, and scanning processes, with visual instructions on the shop floor. A good scanning solution helps enormously with this, because the system guides the employee step by step instead of requiring them to memorize everything. You can read more about this in implementing warehouse barcode scanning.
Tip: Pair every new temporary worker with an experienced colleague for the first few days. This temporarily slows things down a bit, but prevents errors that will cost you dearly later on in returns and complaints.
Balancing motivation and workload during peak days
Consciously build in a buffer for sick leave and absences. Count on 5 to 10% extra capacity on top of your calculated need. Additionally, ensure sufficient breaks, clear communication regarding working hours, and, where possible, a small reward for the team after the peak. Motivated staff demonstrably make fewer mistakes than exhausted staff.
Stress test processes and workflows
A process that runs smoothly on a normal day can grind to a complete halt under peak load. That is why testing your workflows before Black Friday is not an unnecessary luxury.
Identifying bottlenecks in the order process
Go through the entire pick, pack, and ship process step by step and ask yourself: where does a delay occur when the volume increases tenfold? Often, these are bottlenecks at packing stations, printing shipping labels, or the handover between picking and packing.
With high order volumes, single-order picking is often no longer efficient. Consider batch picking, where an employee collects multiple orders at once, or zone picking, where employees work on fixed zones. You can read which method best suits your situation in comparing order picking methods.
Option 1 – batch picking: Efficient for many small orders with overlapping items, less suitable for a very wide assortment. Option 2 – zone picking: Works well in larger warehouses with clearly defined zones, but requires good coordination between zones.
Perform a dry run before the actual peak: simulate a day with peak volume and measure where delays and errors occur. This is the only way to discover bottlenecks before they hit you on Black Friday itself.
Preparing for return flows after Black Friday
The week after Black Friday often brings a peak in returns. Prepare your return process for this in advance: sufficient capacity for incoming returns, extra capacity planned, and a clear process for quick processing and refunds. You can find detailed tips in optimizing the webshop return process.
Preparing for the role of a WMS during the peak season
Software makes the difference between overview and chaos during peak periods. A warehouse management system gives you real-time insight into inventory and order status, precisely when you need it most.
A good system automatically distributes tasks among warehouse employees and guides them through the warehouse via optimal routes, which shortens onboarding time, especially for temporary staff. The integration with your sales channels is also crucial: without real-time synchronization between your webshop and warehouse inventory, you run the risk of overselling, which is particularly damaging to your customer relationships during Black Friday.
A system like Lyra WMS can help with this by processing peak data without the need for manual corrections, saving your team time and errors during the busiest days of the year. You can read more about exactly what a WMS does in what is a WMS.
Checking technical and logistical prerequisites
In addition to internal processes, there are external factors that can make or break your preparation.
Coordinate your shipping capacity with carriers in a timely manner. Ask about extra pickup slots during peak days and check the deadlines: some carriers apply stricter delivery times during Black Friday due to their own peak workload.
Check if you have sufficient packaging materials and scanners in stock. Nothing is as frustrating as a warehouse full of staff standing still because you have run out of boxes or labels.
Test your IT infrastructure for peak load. A system outage during Black Friday can bring your entire operation to a standstill. Additionally, establish a contingency plan for failures: who does what if the system fails, and how do you temporarily switch to manual processes?
Checklist: final weeks before Black Friday
The table below provides an overview of the key action points per phase.
| Period | Action points |
|---|---|
| Week -8 to -10 | Finalize forecasting, set goals, recruit temporary staff |
| Week -6 | Adjust slotting, determine safety stock, prepare training material |
| Week -4 | Conduct inventory count, stress test processes, confirm agreements with carriers |
| Week -2 | Perform dry run, test IT infrastructure, replenish packaging material |
| Week -1 | Final team briefing, communicate emergency plan, final systems check |
| After Black Friday | Utilize return capacity, schedule evaluation, document lessons learned |
Schedule an evaluation with your team immediately after the peak. What went well, where did bottlenecks arise, and what will you take with you into next year? This evaluation is just as important as the preparation itself, because it allows you to become a step more efficient every year.
Frequently asked questions
How much earlier should you start preparing your warehouse for Black Friday?
Ideally, start 8 to 12 weeks in advance. During that period, you analyze historical data, set forecasts and goals, recruit temporary staff, and adjust your inventory layout. Use the last 2 to 4 weeks for testing, training, and final checks.
How much extra staff do you need during peak season?
This depends on your expected order volume relative to your current capacity. A rule of thumb: first determine how many orders an experienced employee processes per hour under normal circumstances, extrapolate this to your peak volume, and add 5 to 10% buffer staff on top of that for absences and the training time of temporary workers.
What are the most common mistakes when preparing for peak season in a warehouse?
The most common mistakes are: systematically underestimating the order volume, starting to recruit temporary staff too late, failing to stress-test processes in advance so that bottlenecks only become visible during the peak itself, and having insufficient packaging materials or scanners in stock.
How do you prevent overselling during Black Friday?
You prevent overselling through a real-time connection between your webshop and your warehouse system. As soon as stock drops, this must be immediately visible on your sales channels, so that you never sell more than you actually have in stock. Manual stock updates are simply too slow during peak periods.
How do you handle the increase in returns after Black Friday?
Prepare your returns process in advance by allocating sufficient space and capacity in the week following Black Friday. Ensure a clear, fast process for booking and reviewing returns, and communicate transparently to customers regarding processing times. This will prevent the influx of returns from putting renewed pressure on your newly restored warehouse.
Would you like to know how to handle this in your warehouse? Schedule a no-obligation discovery call and we'll go through it together.
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