Holiday shopping is a hectic yet lucrative time for retailers. Last year, U.S. shoppers spent $994.1 billion, a 4% increase from 2023. But this story of festive peaks is changing for the retail sector.
While the full impact of tariff fluctuations on the shop floor is still unfolding, McKinsey reports that they are making consumers think twice about spending on non-essential items.
However, despite the bad press, Amazon’s first 2025 Prime Day performed 10% better than last year. Retailers that ran simultaneous promotions during this period, meanwhile, are reported to have raked in $7.9 billion.
The rise of more regular discount shopping events appeals to budget-conscious customers and drives frequent surges in sales — requiring businesses to prepare for year-round spikes, alongside other holidays and promotions.
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This always-on approach has its benefits for shoppers in this uncertain climate, but only while shelves remain reliably stocked. So if retailers want to keep pace with this new trend, they must engineer supply chains to be peak-ready and flexible as standard.
Plan Together, Not in Silo
Planning and levelling up technology are common themes in supply chain agility narratives. But there’s a foundational point that’s more crucial for always-on retailers: trading partner collaboration. When this link is weak, it is estimated to cost businesses around $158 billion a year in excess inventory, expedites and re‑work, while the uptake of agreed processes hovers at only 20%‑30 . For retailers facing regular ‘Christmas‑level’ surges, closing this gap is a priority.
Walmart’s new Luminate Digital Landscapes program shows what’s possible. By sharing near‑real‑time demand signals with vendors, suppliers can pull orders forward before big events. This stabilizes capacity and protects margins for everyone in the supply chain.
During the 2024 spring promotions, for instance, participating brands shifted production up to two weeks earlier and avoided costly air freight premiums. This shows how effective planning and cost saving depend on partners working transparently, be it through data sharing or simply holding each other accountable to ensure optimisation.
Stock Smart
Working this way delivers speed, but to be truly ‘agile,’ retailers need warehouses that tie into these collaborative ecosystems.
The smartest warehouses do more than simply store stock; they optimize how it’s processed. British department store John Lewis has taken a futuristic approach to this idea through the adoption of 60 tall, autonomous HAI Robots that can collect items from storage racks up to 10 meters high. Using these is far quicker than traditional manual retrieval methods, and it’s improved how efficiently space is used. In fact, John Lewis boosted storage at this warehouse by 75%, and it is believed that this strategic upgrade helped them manage 17 million products last Christmas.
Flexibility in supply planning matters too — speed only shows when suppliers file accurate advance‑ship notices straight into their warehouse management systems (WMS), so that robots pick the right product first time.
Meanwhile, the pressure on ecommerce fulfilment is only rising — a recent Mastercard report shows that online apparel sales are growing over twice as fast as in-store, 4.5% versus 2%. And shoppers increasingly hold out for digital promo codes before clicking “buy.” Tech-first systems like robotics and integrated WMS will ultimately help retailers stay responsive and protect margins during demand surges.
Control Visibility
Another necessity for smart retailers is how they create certainty for themselves. We must not overlook that home delivery remains the preference for 82% of shoppers. Knowing exactly where your goods are down to the hour can influence staffing decisions and whether your brand can honor a next-day delivery claim on your website (when your competitors can’t). Gen Z, whose average holiday spend jumped 37% to $1,752 last year, will abandon carts if next‑day delivery is not explicit.
Creating certainty relies on vendors locking in slot times upstream, so planners can reroute capacity days – not hours – in advance. This kind of assurance requires end-to-end visibility on supply chain operations: not just container tracking but also control of supply chain chokepoints where delays traditionally occur.
Here, ownership matters. Asset‑light logistics models promise agility, yet at the height of peak periods, it’s the company with guaranteed berth slots, deployable assets and near‑shore hub capacity that excels.
Pack Right
My final recommendation to retailers is to rethink how goods are packaged – whether for the store or direct to customers. Here, open lines of communication with your vendor’s packaging suppliers could cut prices and delivery times, while also helping reach ESG goals by reducing waste and lowering carbon footprints.
Parcel carriers charge by cubic inch, so every millimeter of ‘air’ inside a carton comes at a price. Retailers that use the right-sized packaging ship larger quantities in fewer pallets and pay lower surcharges. Customers tend to prefer a box that fits and protects their purchases sufficiently, without excess waste, which can be off-putting.
Speaking of packaging, it is one of the more visible ways retailers can articulate their commitment to greater sustainability processes across their operations. Choosing packaging materials that are recyclable or responsibly sourced and cutting down on plastics and fillers helps businesses appeal to the more eco-minded consumer and, in turn, also improve consumer trust.
Always-on supply chains are emerging as a growth strategy for retail leaders – but only when every chain works together. Businesses that treat “peak” as an annual scramble will burn cash. Those that work closely with partners throughout their supply chains can meet demand surges without financial loss, using greater visibility and flexibility to reliably support customers as trends evolve.
Tony Zasimovich is a senior executive with 30 years’ experience in global supply chain management. At DP World, he leads the Global Retail vertical, driving strategy and delivering tailored supply chain solutions for customers across markets.
