The day of one-off deals, clearance discounts and endless promotions full of discounts: Black Friday, or Black Friday, lasts for days or even weeks.
This timely date has made the logistics and retail sector have it marked on their calendars as one of the most important dates of the year. Last mile logistics operators and those dedicated to e-commerce have been planning their strategy for about 6 months.
The employment company Randstad, forecasts that nothing more and nothing less than 43,170 contracts will be created for this campaign (Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas). This hiring figure would be the highest in recent years, 22.7% more than a year ago and almost 49% compared to 2019.
7 out of 10 of these contracts are linked to the logistics sector, which is looking to increase its workforce to cope with the workload that this commercial campaign usually generates. A 26.7% increase in hiring in the sector compared to last year is expected, with a generalized increase in the volume of deliveries.
As María Salcedo, director of Experts for Experts, points out, “Black Friday is a short campaign but with very high turnover”, which is why the sector has been preparing stocks for weeks as a means of preventing stock-outs, reinforcing the fleet and logistics capacity by opening strategic hubs to speed up the logistics distribution of shipments.
If you are surprised by the logistical and commercial deployment that we are telling you about, we can tell you that it is not for nothing. The Spanish logistics and transport employers' association (UNO) has estimated that delivery companies will manage 106 million shipments during this shopping season. Every purchase involves a probability of return and UNO expects the rate of returns to be as high as 35.5%.
Moving 1 million packages a day is a challenge faced not only by the logistics sector but also by retailers, which is why the latter have been looking for strategies to avoid being overwhelmed, or at least trying to do so.
Some e-commerces claim that sales can even triple during these dates, so looking for strategies is an item on your to-do list that you can't miss if you want to detect possible bottlenecks. Some e-commerces claim that sales can even triple.
For this reason, many retailers, in addition to having more than one transport company for these dates, have given their customers the possibility to choose where, how and when to receive their orders.
The option of where to receive shipments maximizes the success of delivery because the user can choose whether to receive their purchases at home, pick them up in store, at convenience points or opt for collection at strategic points of Click and Collect through Smart Lockers, the latter options also help to reduce between 6 and 8 from the production of CO2.
The consumer's ability to choose where, how and when to receive their orders maximizes delivery success.
The fact that the user can decide how to receive his orders allows the elimination of failed deliveries, thus reducing emissions per package.
Will the volume of sales increase compared to previous years or will they remain the same? Will collection points be boosted more during these specific dates? In a few weeks we will be able to see the results of this short but intense shopping day.
