Each year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday create an extremely busy shipping period, putting extra strain on delivery and logistics companies over that weekend. This year, it will be no different. Millions of orders will be placed and perhaps thanks to Covid-19, even more than usual.
How Big Will This Increase Be?
In 2019, over £5.5 billion was spent over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. The spending created around 30 million total orders, of which, over 22 million required shipping to the customer.
This year, spending is predicted to hit closer to £6 billion and an even larger percentage of orders are likely to be placed online due to the impacts of Covid-19. Given that last year’s spending resulted in a 5x increase in daily order volume, it’s likely that logistics companies will again see a massive surge in demand in such a short space of time.
What Impacts Will This Demand Have On Logistics Companies?
It is estimated that 2019’s effect of Black Friday on logistics lead to an extra 210,000 delivery trips. As we know, this year is going to be at least as intense, if not even more so. Companies in the UK can expect to see an overall increase above 250,000 extra journeys during Black Friday and the following week, which will create a need for extra vehicles, increased fuel and maintenance costs and more driver costs.
The busy period is also likely to create delays and complications for logistics companies that they will need to be able to deal with effectively. Reducing the knock-on effect of build-ups, preventing extreme delays and dealing with customer queries will all be extremely important to stay on top of.
What’s more is that it’ll likely lead to busy distribution centres – warehouses will become crowded and overfilled and there might be a sense of urgency to get vehicles loaded and sent out. Logistics and delivery companies will need to pay extra attention here as not managing this properly could lead to injuries, dangerous situations and cargo spills.
Keep an eye out for our next Blog post to find out what steps logistics companies can take in order to cope with and handle the busy Black Friday and Cyber Monday Weekend!