Perform Like a Champion During Peak Parcel Season

Redwoods annual peak-season shipping guide emphasizes the importance of preparing rigorously, right now, for the 2025 peak parcel shipping season. If you haven’t already started, now’s the time to forecast demand, plan distribution, create shipping schedules, and line up your inventory and labor resources. Draft a team of carriers, both veterans and rookies, that aligns with your cost and service goals.  

But no matter how carefully you plan, there are bound to be surprises when peak season arrives. Those 34 days between Black Friday 2025 and New Year’s Day 2026 could bring snow squalls, demand peaks and valleys, carrier no-shows, and other challenges. You need to move like a champion and pivot with confidence, no matter what obstacles arise.  

While preparation is essential, it’s only one component of peak-season success. As Redwood’s annual shipping guide emphasizes, there are three keys to emerging as a winner in November and December:

• Prepare by forecasting demand, planning distribution, and lining up resources now.
• Perform when it matters most, using advanced tech, real-time visibility, and agile replanning. 
• Perfect in the post-season as you audit costs, analyze results, and train for 2026. 

By focusing on these three performance aspects, Redwood’s Parcel Advisory team drives 23% cost savings for our customers, on average. 

In this blog post, second in a three-part series, let’s focus on maximizing your in-season performance. No matter what challenges arise during the peak season, you can still emerge as a winner if you have the right capabilities in place.  

Gear Up for the Win, with the Right Technology 

Champion skiers, bobsledding teams, snowboarders, and other athletes know the right gear plays a huge role. Strategic upgrades to their equipment are a proven way to get to the podium. 

Similarly, your parcel shipping performance depends on having advanced, innovative tools in the form of modern logistics technology. If you are still relying on manual processes and human analysis to handle peak-season disruptions, it is like strapping on heavy wooden skis while competitors' race ahead on lightweight fiberglass designs. No matter how strong your team is, you will fall behind. 

Advanced tech solutions like a transportation management system (TMS) and warehouse management system (WMS) have become imperative, not optional, in today’s landscape of increasing supply chain complexity and volatility.  

These solutions drive peak performance by optimizing loads, routes, and schedules, as well as maximizing your speed and efficiency in picking orders and preparing shipments. And, when something inevitably goes wrong, advanced intelligence allows them to choose the best resolution much faster than human cognition and spreadsheet-based analysis. They help you pivot dynamically, quickly, agilely, and continuously on your way to the finish line.  

Let’s say a carrier misses a key delivery deadline. Human planners might choose an easy, but expensive, resolution like expediting the shipment through another carrier. Even so, it might take days to fix the issue. In the meantime, sales are lost, and customer loyalty plummets. 

Supported by intelligent decision engines, modern logistics software identifies disruptions, analyzes their impact, considers options, makes tradeoffs, and delivers an optimal resolution that balances cost with service in just seconds or minutes. Imagine the advantage this gives you on race day.  

Maximize Your Visibility, for a Clear Path to Success  

But the value of advanced technology goes beyond maximizing efficiency and mastering disruption. Modern software, combined with digital connectivity, enables you to track every order and every shipment in real time, from first mile to last.   

Winners know success is driven by installing a TMS, but also by connecting it with carriers and other trading partners to enable a clear, real-time, 360-degree view of the field. You can see the path to success clearly, navigate minor obstacles with ease and speed, and avoid making a wrong move on the fly.  

By sharing this real-time perspective with customers, you can meet their expectations, increase their confidence, and drive repeat business. Whatever happens with their parcel shipments along the way, from extreme weather to route closures, customers will be aware of it. And they’ll be able to see that their critical holiday packages will arrive in time for their Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or New Year’s celebrations. That adds up to medal-winning performance. 

Partner with Redwood, and Pivot In-Season with Ease 

As a modern 4PL, Redwood offers our Parcel customers a unique combination of hands-on shipping experience and advanced tech expertise. If you lack the internal resources to install, integrate, and apply today’s logistics software to improve your parcel shipping results, look no further than Redwood.  

Redwood collaborates with every leading provider of logistics software. And our proprietary integration platform, RedwoodConnect™, links shipper and carrier systems in real time—including homegrown tools, as well as TMS, WMS, ERP and LTL solutions. The result? A unified tech environment that supports both peak-season and year-round success. 

It’s easy to bring our Parcel Advisory team and Redwood’s tech experts on board to boost your peak-season bench strength, with flexibility and no long-term commitment. Contact us today and start improving your peak-season visibility, agility, and resilience.and start improving your peak-season visibility, agility, and resilience. 

Get Your 2025 Parcel Peak Shipping Guide 

Want a deeper playbook to navigate the season? Download Redwood’s 2025 Parcel Peak Shipping Guide for detailed strategies, timelines, and tips to keep your business ahead of the curve.