For parcel shippers, peak season is often viewed as a volume challenge. But the biggest threats to performance usually come from labor shortages, carrier constraints, shifting costs, and evolving customer expectations. That's why the most successful peak season strategies prepare for variability, not just volume.
Find and Fix Operational Weaknesses Before Peak
If you've lived through peak before, you know it exposes operational weaknesses. A minor issue at normal volumes can quickly become a major shipping delay when volumes grow, and there's less room for error.
Labor is one of the largest contributors to variability. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, retailers added 461,500 seasonal jobs in the fourth quarter of 2025, the fewest since 2008, and the firm expects a slight dip to 450,000 this year. Yet e-commerce sales grew nearly 6% in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. “Seasonal hiring has largely disconnected from holiday sales growth,” says Darren Lamb, Vice President of Strategic Insights & Growth at Colography.
Carriers are also hiring fewer seasonal workers. UPS plans to hire more than 100,000 this year, down from 125,000 in 2024, while expanding automation. This year’s holiday growth projections of 4-5%, however, are measured in dollars, Lamb points out, and with rising prices and fuel costs, real volume growth could be thinner than the headline suggests.
With leaner teams covering a longer, less predictable peak, depth matters more than headcount. Cross training permanent employees on packing, shipping, and exception handling keeps critical processes running when staffing falls short.
Just as important is reviewing fulfillment workflows prior to peak. Walk the shipping process from start to finish and look for steps where new or temporary hires are most likely to make mistakes, such as packing, label generation, address validation, and exception management. The better prepared your staff are, the fewer costly judgment calls fall to someone in their first week.
Carrier networks deserve the same attention. Review performance from previous peak seasons by region and service level. Onboard alternative carriers early enough to allow time for integration and testing. Contingency plans should spell out which shipments can be rerouted, what triggers the change, and who has authority to make the call.
Manage Costs While Protecting the Customer Experience
Transportation costs are another major source of variability. Volumes can be projected months ahead, but surcharges and fuel shift throughout the season, making costs less predictable as well as higher. Residential ground fees at UPS and FedEx are up significantly year over year and USPS recently added a 6% peak surcharge on top of the 8% increase implemented earlier this year. Fuel adds another layer of uncertainty, with UPS ground fuel surcharges reaching over 29%, effective in October.
The good news? Many of these costs are within a shipper's control. Review packaging dimensions and weights, especially for shipments near additional handling or large package thresholds, where a minor change can prevent costly fees. Take another look at service level policies too. Defaulting to faster services as a precaution drives up spend unnecessarily, so align service levels with the delivery commitment and compare carriers on the fully loaded cost, not the base rate.
Cost savings can't come at the expense of the customer. Anybody loves fast delivery, but arriving when promised matters most. Providing accurate delivery dates at checkout sets realistic expectations, and proactive communication maintains trust when delays occur. And since most surcharge schedules run into mid-January, returns deserve the same planning as outbound shipments.
Turn Visibility into Faster Decisions
No matter how well you prepare, adjustments will be needed once volumes climb. Carrier service disruptions, unexpected cost increases, and weather events can alter conditions rapidly. Beyond monitoring performance, visibility is what lets teams spot issues early enough to act before they reach customers.
Most shippers regularly track carrier performance, cost per package, transit times, and shipment exceptions. During peak, each of these metrics should correspond with a predefined action. For example, if on-time delivery rates start to decline in a specific region, teams should already know whether shipments will move to an alternative carrier and who is designated to approve the change.
Transit times and exceptions affect customers more directly. If delivery performance slows in a certain market, update the delivery dates shown at checkout to reflect current conditions. Similarly, a spike in address issues, weather delays, or carrier exceptions should trigger proactive outreach before customers have to ask.
Visibility only pays off when the response is decided in advance. Establishing thresholds prior to peak puts teams in a better position to act quickly and confidently.
Planning for What Forecasts Miss
Peak season may bring in more orders, but forecasts can overstate what actually reaches the dock. Success ultimately comes down to how well an operation responds to changing conditions. The shippers who perform best prepare for variability in advance by building labor depth, organizing contingency plans, and setting clear thresholds that trigger action when performance takes a hit.
Evan Knauss is the Strategic Marketing Manager at ProShip, a leading provider of multi-carrier shipping software solutions for enterprise parcel shippers. She writes about parcel operations, carrier strategy, and shipping technology, and manages ProShip’s webinar and event programs. When she’s not translating shipping jargon into plain English, you can find her working on her latest DIY project at home in Milwaukee, WI. Evan focuses on turning complex shipping challenges into practical guidance shippers can put to work.
