Holiday Songs for Your Playlist
’Tis the season to be jolly…and avoid supply chain folly. Add these songs to your queue for some holiday cheer as well as unexpected insights.
★ It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Andy Williams)
The hap-happiest season of all is getting longer. Retailers are stretching out the holiday shopping season, using marketing tactics to encourage consumers to buy early and tempering Black Friday and Cyber Monday demand spikes.
★ Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (Bruce Springsteen)
…as early as August. Home improvement retailer Home Depot, for example, rolled out holiday items online in the summer. The company started selling festive merchandise, like a giant Santa Claus yard decoration and a 6-foot-tall dancing Grinch, after making a list of previous holiday season shopping patterns and noting early customer demand.
★ Last Christmas (Wham!)
To save them from tears, companies gear up their supply chains early. “Retailers are often bringing in holiday inventory as early as July to get it through the ports and have time to distribute it,” says Nikki Baird, VP of strategy, Aptos, a retail technology company. “November and December alone can account for as much as 30-40% of a retailer’s total yearly sales.”
★ Deck the Halls (Nat King Cole)
To let Americans deck the halls, importers of holiday lights and decorations are turning to Cambodia in merry measure, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Cambodia increased its share of U.S. decoration imports from 2% in 2018 to 11% in 2023, though China still dominates, according to Chris Rogers, head of supply chain research at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
★ My Favorite Things (Tony Bennett)
Don’t expect as many brown paper packages (tied up with strings or otherwise) this holiday season. Package carriers will deliver an estimated 82 million packages a day during the peak holiday season (Thanksgiving through mid-January). Last year, the daily average was 90 million, according to ShipMatrix, which analyzes industry data.
★ Delivering Christmas (Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie, Pepe, Jessie L. Martin)
To pick it up and beat the clock, the U.S. Postal Service expanded its daily package processing capacity to 70 million, up around 10 million from last year’s capacity. Additionally, after adapting its transportation and logistics processes, it can now deliver 95% of volume via more reliable ground transportation.