Retailers have spent the better part of 2025 grappling with shifting trade policies that can change the cost of goods by 25-30% overnight. Now, with the busiest shopping period of the year on the horizon, the challenge becomes even more complex. Peak season — a period that seems to creep earlier into the calendar each year — is approaching, and those same trade policies that have made inventory planning a guessing game all year aren’t showing any signs of stabilizing.
Peak season used to be synonymous with holiday shopping, but these days, retailers are celebrating holidays that aren’t on the calendar, such as Amazon’s Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Despite trade uncertainty, consumer spending is expected to grow. The National Retail Federation forecasts 2025 retail sales to grow 2.7% to 3.7% over last year and reach up to $5.48 trillion.
How retailers approach this new peak season has changed. Traditional forecasting models are breaking down amid abrupt and unpredictable changes in consumer demand and volatile market conditions. The new playbook is all about how quickly retailers can respond when changes arise. It’s a fundamental reimagining of how supply chains should operate during periods of heightened demand and uncertainty.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. Last year, some companies saw an increase in holiday deliveries, demonstrating the kind of volatility that makes traditional planning exercises antiquated. This year’s timeline is tight, too, with only 19 business days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so the margin for error has virtually disappeared.
The forecasting challenge
Orders being placed now for Black Friday and Cyber Monday inventory require predicting not just consumer demand months in advance but also the trade environment when those goods arrive. A product ordered today could cost significantly more or less by the time it reaches distribution centers, depending on policy changes that happen between now and delivery.
This uncertainty has created three distinct approaches among major retailers. Some are proceeding with normal ordering patterns, planning to pass any cost increases directly to consumers. Others are committing to absorbing cost fluctuations to maintain stable pricing for customers. A third group is reducing inventory orders while waiting for more policy clarity, accepting the risk of potential stockouts if demand materializes.
Each strategy represents a different bet on how the uncertainty will resolve and what consumers will tolerate over an extended timeline. What once was a concentrated November-December push now spans from July through year-end, forcing retailers to maintain elevated capacity and responsiveness across six months rather than a few concentrated weeks.
The retail evolution
Consumer expectations have evolved alongside these operational challenges, creating new opportunities for retailers willing to embrace flexibility. The traditional model of store-exclusive doorbusters has largely disappeared. Retailers are extending their best deals to online channels, trusting their delivery networks to handle the resulting surge in demand rather than forcing customers to compete for limited in-store inventory.
This shift reflects broader changes in consumer behavior. Shoppers now expect to access the same deals online that they would find in stores, with delivery options that accommodate their schedules. The ability to promise product availability across all channels has become essential for holiday success.
Retailers are discovering that consumers are more willing to accept slightly longer delivery times during peak periods, provided they can be confident their orders will actually be fulfilled. Reliability is becoming more important than raw speed, creating opportunities for retailers to optimize their networks for resilience rather than just velocity.
Price guarantees have emerged as another tool for managing uncertainty. They allow retailers to start selling earlier in the season while promising customers they won’t pay more than they would during traditional sale events. This approach helps spread volume across more weeks while giving consumers the confidence to purchase without waiting for better deals.
Building responsive capacity
The retailers succeeding in this environment have moved beyond trying to predict the unpredictable. Instead, they’re building supply chains that can expand and contract rapidly based on real-time conditions — responsive capacity models rather than static seasonal planning.
This approach starts with maintaining optionality in how orders are fulfilled. High-velocity standard items might flow efficiently from centralized distribution centers, while bulky or time-sensitive orders require more flexible, localized solutions. The ability to shift between store fulfillment and distribution center fulfillment based on real-time inventory levels and capacity constraints has become particularly valuable.
Larger items represent a special opportunity during peak season, when traditional carriers often struggle to maintain standard service levels. Retailers that can offer reliable delivery for furniture, appliances, and other oversized items can differentiate themselves when competitors scale back capabilities.
The key to making flexibility work is investing in the technology and partnerships that enable real-time decision-making. This means order management systems that can route individual orders to the optimal fulfillment location based on current capacity, inventory levels, and delivery requirements. It means carrier relationships that can scale up or down based on daily demand rather than seasonal contracts that lock in capacity months in advance.
Perhaps most importantly, this means accepting that this year’s peak season will likely look different from last year’s and that next year will bring its unique challenges. The peak seasons that work are the ones where you can pivot when things don’t go according to plan — and they never do. The retailers who accept that uncertainty is the new normal and build their operations around it will be the ones still standing when the dust settles.
