Ready for the festive season? Here’s your checklist. 

Festive peak does not break operations because volume is high. It breaks them because every decision has to be made faster, with less slack behind it. The work that makes peak calm happens eight weeks out, while there is still time to order, hire and test.

Weeks 8 and 7: Commit inventory and packaging

Start with the SKU list, not the forecast. Decide which 20 or 30 SKUs you will actually push, and accept that the rest is a tail you will fulfil but not promote. Then build a daily order forecast for each peak week, with a peak-day number, not just a monthly total.

Then place two orders. 

●        Inventory. Work backwards from supplier lead time and add a buffer week. A supplier who normally takes 15 days will take longer in the same weeks your competitors are also ordering.

●        Packaging consumables. Boxes, flyers, tape, void fill, thermal label rolls. Size the order against your peak-day rate. Running out of the right box forces oversized packing, which costs more on chargeable weight and protects the product less.

Finalise dimensions and weight for anything new. A SKU whose pack format is still undecided in week 3 will be mis-manifested in week 1. 

Weeks 6 and 5: the capacity and cut-off conversation

This is the conversation most sellers have too late. Book time with your account team in week 6 and bring numbers, not questions:

●        A daily volume forecast by week, with your expected peak day.

●        Your weight and dimension profile, and any category change from last year.

●        Your COD versus prepaid split.

●        Pickup locations, including any temporary one.

●        The pin codes and zones your demand is shifting towards.

Ask three things specifically: how many pickups a day your volume justifies at peak, what the slot timings will be, and whether the same-day induction cut-off shifts during peak weeks. Then ask what a good handover looks like at your volume - bagged, manifested, staged by service type - because a clean handover is what protects the cut-off when a day runs late. Confirm expected transit for the zones you are pushing into, so the promise on your site is one you can keep.

Get the answers in writing and put the cut-off time on the wall above the packing bench. Everything that follows is built around it.

Weeks 4 and 3: Staffing, communication and the prepaid push

Hire packing help now so they are trained before peak, not during it. A packer recruited in peak week is a net drag for their first three days. Run them on normal volume for a fortnight, and write the packing recipe per SKU on a card at the bench.

Set the support roster the same way. Decide who covers weekends and late evenings, and give one person the exceptions and NDR queue as their only job. Write canned replies now: delayed order, address correction, exchange request, "where is my order".

This is also the window to lift prepaid share, which trims return rates and the cash sitting in transit. Small prepaid incentives, UPI prominence at checkout and a payment link on high-value COD orders all work. Do not blanket-block COD since it is a genuine feature of this market, and blocking it costs more revenue than it protects.

Weeks 2 and 1: Freeze, and what not to launch

Two weeks out, freeze the operation. No new checkout code, no replatform, no new packaging format, no new SKU with untested dimensions, no warehouse relayout. Anything that has not run for a fortnight at normal volume does not go live in peak. Hold it for the week after the returns tail clears.

Rehearse instead. Pick one day, pack to a peak-day target, and time it. You are looking for the bottleneck: label printing, picking travel, or the bench itself. Stage packaging at arm's reach, print labels in batches, pre-fold boxes. Check the wallet balance covers a peak week so nothing pauses mid-day, and confirm bank details are correct so COD remittance runs on its normal cycle.

Peak week and the fortnight after

Run peak on a fixed daily rhythm. A 15-minute morning huddle on yesterday's dispatch and today's target. Manifest before the cut-off, every day, without exception. One person on exceptions and NDR only. One dashboard check at midday: orders packed against target, pickups completed, open exceptions.

Then plan for the tail, because the fortnight after peak carries the returns wave. Book reverse pickups daily rather than in one batch, and put a named person on inspecting and restocking so returned stock sells again quickly. Reconcile peak invoices while the dispute windows are open, checking weight adjustments against your own manifested figures.

What you can do 

1. Fix your SKU push list and your peak-day order forecast.

2. Place the packaging order against the peak-day rate, not the average.

3. Book the account review for week 6 and prepare the five inputs above.

4. Put the pickup cut-off time on the wall and start dispatching to it now.

5. Write your freeze list - everything you are deliberately not launching and share it with the team.

Pull your zone, weight and COD mix from reports on Delhivery One before that account review. A conversation about pickup capacity and cut-offs goes further when both sides read the same numbers.