Shipping in Peak Season: How to Manage Tracking at High Volume

Why Peak Season Breaks Tracking

Peak season stresses every part of the fulfilment chain:

• Carriers handle 3–5x normal volume, causing scan delays
• Customer support tickets spike as delivery windows stretch
• Your team is already stretched managing picking, packing, and dispatch

Manual tracking processes that barely work in normal months collapse completely during peak.

Pre-Season Preparation Checklist

6 Weeks Before Peak

• Audit carrier performance from the previous year — which carriers had the worst OTDR?
• Negotiate capacity commitments with your carriers
• Set up fallback carriers for your highest-volume lanes

4 Weeks Before Peak

• Review and update your notification templates — set realistic delivery estimates
• Enable exception notifications in TrackLogy if you haven't already
• Brief your support team on the exception-handling workflow

2 Weeks Before Peak

• Run a test order through each carrier lane
• Verify all notification triggers are firing correctly
• Check your branded tracking page loads fast on mobile

During Peak

• Monitor TrackLogy's exception dashboard daily
• Flag any carrier showing >5% exception rate for immediate escalation
• Extend estimated delivery date language in notifications proactively ("Please allow 1–2 additional business days during peak season")

Communication Strategy During Delays

When carrier delays are industry-wide (e.g., Christmas week), communicate at the category level, not the shipment level. Add a banner to your tracking page and send a proactive email to all customers with in-transit shipments.

This positions you as transparent and proactive — not defensive.

Monitoring in TrackLogy During Peak

• Shipments dashboard filtered by "Exception" status — clear this queue daily
• Carrier performance widget — watch OTDR drop and route around the worst performers
• Notification send rate — ensure emails are still going out without delays