4 Tips to prepare for summer sales orders in 2025

It’s estimated that 80% of the success of the sales season lies in its preparation! Although intense, this pivotal period will enable you to make a lot of profit if it’s properly prepared. That’s why we’re going to take a look at how to prepare your orders for the summer sales.

To do this, you need to anticipate the sales period by forecasting your sales and placing your supplier orders in advance. Next, you need to understand how to adapt your order-picking processes for the sales period. Once this has been done, it’s important to draw up a checklist to optimize your warehouse. We’ll conclude with a few tips to help you manage your peak sales activity.

How to prepare your summer sale orders: adopting the right strategy to anticipate the sales

The first step in preparing for an intense peak in activity is to establish a strategy that makes sense by following our order-picking tips. By this, we mean planning a strategy that revolves around the following questions:

Which products will I put on sale?
Which products will I highlight (best sellers)?
What percentage will I apply? On which product(s)? At what price?

Next, we need to anticipate the volume of orders by asking ourselves:

How many orders can I expect?
How many products will my orders consist of? What percentage of my orders will be single-product orders? Will I have many identical orders?

This non-exhaustive list will help you determine how these elements will be useful for :

Use our picking tips to determine the best picking method to choose,
Organize your warehouse optimally

Place restocking orders to maintain stock levels.

To prepare for sales on the Internet, we also advise you to anticipate and pay particular attention to supply orders, taking into account :

Legislation : preparing sales on the Internet can only involve goods that have been on sale and paid for for at least a month, and retailers can’t restock during these sales operations (unlike promotions).

Suppliers’ replenishment lead times (usual lead times, special circumstances, etc.).

The different order-picking processes for the sales season

Process n°1 – Preparation order :

For each order, a purchase order is created, containing all the information needed to prepare the order, as well as the location of the products. The order picker fetches the products from the warehouse where they are located, then puts together the order and dispatches it. He flashes the barcode on the order form, he flashes the barcode on the products, and the transport label is automatically issued.

The preparation order
Picking
And, the expedition

Process n° 2 – Pick and Print, which works as follows:

Applied to single-product orders, pick and print is a set of orders made up of a single product. The picker makes a single trip to the warehouse to pick 50 orders at a time. Picking is dematerialized using a PDA, which directs the pickers to the products in the warehouse. Once the products have been picked, the picker goes to the packing station to put together the packages and generate the transport labels.

Global pickup, which follows the paper order form,
Packaging,
And, the expedition

Process n°3 – Beehive bursting in three stages:

The process applies to multi-product orders: using the information communicated by the PDA, I go to the warehouse to pick up the products, put them in the cart and, after picking, sort my products in an apiary. The advantage is that I can move around the warehouse once for several orders.

Global pickup,
Sorting,
And then the expedition

Process n°4 – Mobile apiary bursting , a two-stage process:

A variation on the beehive burst. The bin, which has wheels, allows you to collect and sort at the same time. The PDA tells you which bin to put the product in.

First of all, there’s the overall collection, which takes place at the same time as the sorting, known as splitting.
And, the expedition

Process n°5 – BtoB preparation thanks to :

The process consists in using the PDA to prepare and pack the containers at the time of picking. At the end of the order-picking process, labels are issued for each container, whether pallet or carton.

Picking + Packing
Editions label + Delivery note

Process n°6 – Event-driven orders (commercial operations)

When you find yourself selling a lot of single-unit merchandise to a plethora of different customers, it can happen that

Create a single-reference session + edit transport labels
Fetch products from stock
Packages are put together
Stick on the labels

If your products are already packaged, you can stick the transport label directly onto the box, without having to handle the packages.

Defining the most suitable process

Pick to light is best for :

Preparing for sales with many orders at the same time
Increase the productivity of the entire sales order preparation logistics chain.
Reduce the risk of oversights or errors in preparation

Pick and print allows you to :

Generate a single trip to stock to pick the products needed to prepare a set of orders, thus limiting warehouse movements
Increase productivity
The larger the warehouse surface area, the more relevant the principle of global pick-up.

Apiary bursting is used to :

Carry out a global pick-up to collect all the products needed to prepare several orders at once
Optimize travel and time, as there is only one picking route in the warehouse

And finally, the mobile apiary allows you to :

Prepare a set of orders in a single trip using a “beehive” cabinet
Saves time, as products are distributed directly according to orders as soon as they are picked up.

Create a checklist in preparation for sales

As we mentioned earlier, drawing up a checklist to optimize your warehouse is absolutely essential if you want to reap maximum benefits. That’s why we’ve drawn up a list of steps to follow, so that you can plan your sales preparation period in the best possible way.

To find out more about our order-picking tips to prepare your site for the sales period, you can watch the replay of our webinar dedicated to the subject.

Optimize your picking

Warehousing must be optimized before installing e-commerce logistics technology to achieve real time savings and efficiency gains

Opt for a classification and arrangement of references: “ABC method” or “Pareto method”.

The most popular references: easy access for optimized travel

Set up preparation circuits: the preparer does not visit the same place several times.

Optimizing workspaces

The workstation must be optimally installed. To achieve this, it is important to take into account the size of the operator.
Essential items should be positioned within easy reach at an angle of about 60 degrees.

I prioritize the preparation of sales orders according to the transport cut-off.

Establishing shipping rules as soon as orders are received, and not just when they are packed, enables you to plan picking sessions according to the carrier.

I organize / plan human resources

Provide sufficient human resources for the orders to be processed (temporary staff, fixed-term contracts, students, etc.).

Modification of working hours to absorb the peak. Workloads are not linear during sales periods!

So it’s time to reorganize working hours!

I optimize my stock management

Connect and use inventory for different sales channels for real-time order processing
Reserve stock by sales channel, retrieve orders awaiting payment
Take inventory approximately 2 weeks before the sale
Deploy stock performance distribution strategies
Set up routing rules (if multiple warehouses)

Conclusion

The summer sales period subjects you and your team to a peak of intense activity, and it’s imperative that you prepare for Paris retail week 2023, on a strategic, operational and human level. In short, you need to pay particular attention to :