The Black Friday and holiday peak season puts сpressure even on the strongest supply chains. To succeed, shippers should deploy advanced, practical strategies to handle surging orders, tight delivery expectations, and potential disruptions.
Use this comprehensive guide with the most effective strategies utilized by large shippers in the retail, e-commerce, wholesale, and manufacturing industries.
Each strategy includes practical benefits, real-world usage examples, and easy ways to integrate them into your supply chain through 3PLs. Let’s dive in.
Last-Mile Delivery Optimization
Optimized last-mile delivery cuts transit time and costs, boosting on-time performance during the Black Friday surge. For instance, automated route planning can reduce mileage and driver idle time, directly lowering fuel and labor costs. Analytics‑driven dispatch with live traffic and weather data helps reroute around delays in real time.
Such improvements pay off in peak season. Use of big-data logistics cut delivery times by up to 12 hours on Black Friday.
Include advanced routing software, dynamic dispatching, real‑time tracking, and alternative fulfillment nodes like local micro-fulfillment centers, lockers, curbside pickup, and drones.
Best practices
Major e‑tailers and retailers invest heavily in last-mile networks.
For example, Amazon has built tens of thousands of delivery partners and regional hubs, along with innovations like Hub Lockers and drone delivery, to control the last mile.
Similarly, Walmart and Target have converted thousands of stores into micro‑fulfillment hubs and partnered with gig-economy drivers to enable same-day delivery.
Third‑party carriers also deploy dedicated route-optimization tools and crowd-sourced drivers to serve high-density routes.
How 3PLs make it happen
Many third-party logistics providers and carriers offer last-mile solutions, like regional parcel services, local delivery fleets, and crowdsourced courier platforms, that retailers can leverage.
Even specialized 3PLs for cold chain or food use last-mile networks to deliver perishables to stores and consumers.
Hugo Hunter also supports shippers with controlled last-mile capacity, using its own fleet and routing practices to keep deliveries consistent even during peak demand.
Reverse Logistics Excellence
A smooth, rapid returns process protects your revenue and customer loyalty. Post-Black Friday, up to 15–30% of online purchases in some categories come back as returns. If you can turn those around quickly, you can potentially resell them before the holidays end, avoiding lost sales.
By excellence in reverse logistics, you essentially get a second chance to “win” the customer even after an initial sale didn’t work out.
Operationally, having clear return pathways like RMA systems, prepaid labels, and drop-off partnerships during the peak prevents returns from clogging your inbound docks unexpectedly.
In sum, this strategy ensures that the tsunami of returns in early December doesn’t cripple your forward logistics, and instead becomes an opportunity to delight customers and recover losses.
Focus on optimizing the returns process, making it fast, customer-friendly, and cost-effective. Reverse logistics excellence means having systems in place to handle the flood of holiday returns, which often start right after Black Friday or even during the late season.
It encompasses easy return authorization for customers, efficient collection or shipping of returned products back to the warehouse, quick inspection and restocking of resalable items, and disposition plans for damaged or unsellable goods. Essentially, it treats returns as an integral part of the peak strategy, not an afterthought.
Best practices
Leading retailers and brands known for customer service treat returns as a strategic part of the business. Companies like Zappos and Nordstrom, that is known for liberal return policies, have highly optimized reverse logistics.
During the holiday peak, many e-commerce players set up dedicated return processing teams. 3PLs offer streamlined return solutions. Any shipper that expects a high return rate around Black Friday invests in this.
How 3PLs make it happen
Many 3PLs handle returns processing as part of their services. If using a 3PL, you can leverage their reverse logistics infrastructure. They will receive the returned items, inspect, refurbish if needed, and restock or dispose per your instructions.
They might also provide convenient options to customers, like return drop-off locations or automated return portals.
A capable 3PL can thus execute a returns strategy for you at scale. If you handle it yourself, you’ll need in-house systems, but either way, it’s very executable via partners who specialize in returns.
Hugo Hunter supports this flow on the transportation side. We move return loads quickly, predictably, and with flexible scheduling, so inbound volumes don’t overload your docks, and resalable items get back into inventory while the holiday demand is still active.
Distributed Multi-Node Fulfillment Networks
Multi-node fulfillment shortens delivery times and adds resilience. With products stored “where demand will be,” transit distances and shipping costs drop.
During peak surges, a distributed network prevents any single warehouse from being a bottleneck. If one facility faces delays or stockouts, orders can be rerouted to another node, avoiding customer disappointment. It also provides backup in case of disruptions (weather, labor issues) in one region.
Deploy multiple fulfillment centers or warehouses across regions to position inventory closer to customers. This strategy enables faster delivery and reduces shipping distance as orders are routed to the optimal node or store for fulfillment directly. Companies that integrate it reach 90%+ of customers thanks to 2-day delivery.
Top retailers use multi-warehouse networks with real-time order routing and smart inventory allocation across nodes.
Replace past single-site distribution with a geographically distributed fulfillment network to support the rapid, two-day or same-day delivery expectations common during Black Friday promotions.
Best practices
E-commerce giants like Amazon and Walmart, as well as many growing brands, leverage multi-node fulfillment to the fullest.
Amazon, for example, strategically places inventory in numerous U.S. fulfillment centers so that most customers are within two days of a warehouse.
Mid-sized brands achieve similar reach by partnering with 3PLs that operate nationwide warehouse networks. Fashion retailer Paul Smith even turned physical stores into fulfillment nodes (ship-from-store) to increase local capacity, fulfilling 20% of online Black Friday orders from stores and boosting revenue by 28%.
How 3PLs make it happen
This strategy is often implemented via 3PL partners. Third-party logistics providers with multiple fulfillment centers enable companies to “rent” a national or global warehouse footprint.
They offer distributed warehousing and inventory positioning optimized by demand heatmaps, so you can achieve multi-node fulfillment without building facilities.
For instance, Hugo Hunter further enhances these distributed networks by keeping freight moving reliably between nodes and supporting shippers through its strategically located warehouse in Charlotte, which provides efficient storage and regional distribution during peak season.
Hugo Hunter implements these logistics strategies in your supply chain
At Hugo Hunter, we turn seasonal logistics pressure into predictable performance. As a full-scale 3PL logistics company, we integrate planning, technology, and execution to keep your freight moving, even when the market doesn’t.
Our logistics services are built to make your network more flexible at every stage. Enjoy the best logistics practices from cross-docking services that minimize dwell and rebalance inventory in real time, to LTL freight and freight shipping solutions that scale with demand instead of collapsing under it.
We design logistics operations around your goals. Leverage visibility and control, along with live updates and accurate shipping quotes across lanes.
Whether it’s last-mile delivery, peak season shipping, or complex distribution through multiple facilities, we synchronize carriers, timing, and capacity to keep everything aligned.
We focus on how your freight moves, ensuring every part of your logistics chain is ready, responsive, and resilient when it matters most.
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Summary
Each of these advanced strategies can significantly bolster your ability to stay resilient to any disruption during the Black Friday peak. By mixing agile planning, smart use of technology, and collaborative execution, retailers and brands can turn the holiday surge from a chaotic challenge into a managed success.
The common theme is preparedness and flexibility. Use every tool available to predict, adjust, and respond in real time to keep operations efficient. And a reliable partner will always be there to support you in your thrive.