18 years of peak logistics: the unglamorous groundwork behind reliable execution

Eighteen years of peak seasons have taught us one non-negotiable lesson: peak performance isn't built during the rush. It is engineered months in advance.

For retailers, peak trading is the two-month window that defines the entire year. One bad week causes cut-off times to blow out, backlogs to pile up, and first-time shoppers to turn to competitors. Having managed peak logistics since 2008, we know seamless execution isn't luck; it's months of unglamorous groundwork across forecasting, infrastructure and people. That proactive mindset is how we keep throughput high as volumes surge, which means faster deliveries and happier customers at the other end.

Data first, not guesswork

Every July, months before Black Friday, we send customers detailed templates covering their expected inbound stock and outbound sales forecasts. From there, it becomes a true collaboration. We comb through your forecast, pressure-testing your numbers against our deep bank of past peak data and drawing on decades of retail experience to talk through your sales strategy with you. Think of us as your consultants, guiding you through the process so you land on a plan you can trust.

Alongside the templates, customers get a readiness plan tailored to their own fulfilment site and product mix, covering everything from container scheduling to any special kitting or VIP handling requirements ahead of peak.

Once the forecasts are in, we break them down site by site, so we know exactly how much volume each of our five fulfilment centres can expect. That means mapping expected inbound, outbound and storage volumes against specific days across the whole peak window, not just a monthly total. That day-by-day view is what tells us whether our infrastructure can handle it, and if it can't, it's what triggers an order for more.

Building infrastructure that takes the strain

With volumes mapped day by day, we test our infrastructure and its utilisation against the highest-volume days, to make sure we can genuinely cater for them. Capacity goes beyond square metres of warehouse space. It means enough inbound and outbound dock doors to handle the busiest day, and running our annual pallet racking audit early enough that anything out of commission gets fixed well before the inbound spike arrives.

Physical equipment carries its own lead times, measured in months, not weeks: scanners, robots, printers, trolleys, pack benches, pick stations, laptops and forklifts, all of it gets procured and stress-tested well ahead of the rush.

This long-range planning drove our AMR expansion earlier this year. Today, over 350 autonomous mobile robots work across our Melbourne and Sydney facilities, bringing inventory straight to our pick stations so orders are picked faster and more accurately through peak. They're a core part of our 3x surge capacity, which helps us keep pace when order volumes spike.

In-house talent and shift leadership

Scaling workforce capacity well means controlling who is on the floor. Many 3PLs rely on staffing agencies to plug labour gaps, flooding fulfilment floors with short-term temp workers unfamiliar with the systems or customer inventory. We take a different approach. Our own internal recruitment team sources and vets our peak hires, casual and permanent, because that's what protects quality, culture and retention.

Building the shifts themselves starts with the same forecast that drives infrastructure planning. Site leadership works out how many people are needed in each area, inbound and outbound included, by reverse-engineering customer volumes against the known throughput of our machines and teams. That determines how many shifts a site runs, and how far the hours need to stretch on the busiest days. How many leaders each shift needs isn't a fixed ratio; it's set site by site, based on what that volume actually demands.

Extra team members are brought on in waves as volume builds, all working on the same systems and processes we run across every warehouse. Those systems are built to be intuitive, guiding each step so standards stay consistent from site to site. Peak shifts blend new team members with experienced permanent staff, so know-how is shared across the whole floor.

Leadership is where we lean hardest on team members who've been with us for a while. We promote from within rather than bring in outside supervisors, and put those future leaders through a structured program before they step into the role. That covers the hard skills of running a shift, but just as much time goes into the soft skills: how to have a difficult conversation, and how to get the best out of a team under pressure. It's a genuine path to permanent leadership, not just a peak-season fix.

Embedded support and real-time visibility

Customers have live visibility into inventory levels, order processing and returns through our Express Platform, so you can see where your stock and orders stand. And you can act on what you see. Peak volume often leads to wrong addresses and incorrect items, and Express empowers your team to edit incoming orders in real time, for quicker corrections, fewer delays and far less back-and-forth.

Behind the dashboard, our teams keep a close eye on your numbers. Each morning, site teams update a tracker that compares your forecasts against what's actually been received and dispatched, and flags early if volumes are running above or below forecast. When the numbers call for a conversation, our account managers and site leaders get on the phone with you to work out how you'd like to handle it: reprioritising which orders go out first, lining up extra weekend capacity, or reshaping the forecast if your biggest days are still to come.

That's the benefit of having our customer service teams sitting inside our fulfilment centres alongside site leadership, not in a distant office or offshore call centre. If your sales forecast doesn't land perfectly, you're talking to people who can see your stock and work with you on strategies to meet your demand and keep costs under control.

Planning this far ahead also means you'll know how we're set up for your volumes, and what that means for your costs, well before peak lands.

Experience that compounds every season

None of this is theory. Every step above comes from 18 years of running peak, learning from each season and making changes for the next, because experience beats guesswork.

Our post-peak retro is where much of that learning happens. Once peak ends, we go back to our customers to talk through what worked and what didn't, not just to hear the wins. Those conversations give us fresh insights we couldn't get any other way, and every one feeds straight into how we plan the next peak.

As Leigh Williams, eStore's Founder and MD, puts it: "Peak season success isn't luck. It's the result of months of preparation across data, people and technology, so our customers can focus on growing their business while we handle the execution."