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Retail teams balance cost, speed, partners, and margin every day. When volume rises, small issues can snowball, and time is tight. You need a plan that helps you move quickly while keeping customers confident in your ability to deliver. Holiday peak is already taking shape, and signals point in the same direction: earlier demand and higher shipping costs. During July’s deal stretch, U.S. shoppers spent $24.1 billion across July 8-11, up 30% year over year, according to Adobe Business. Back-to-school behavior supports that shift with 67% of K-12 and college shoppers already shopping by mid-July, the earliest start share since NRF began tracking.
Shipping carriers are also preparing for the rush. USPS filed temporary peak-season price changes for Oct. 5, 2025 through Jan. 18, 2026, and UPS and FedEx have published demand-surcharge updates that begin as early as late September.
Late handoffs, higher transport costs, and visibility gaps happen. That is normal. You do not need to fix everything at once. Start by setting a reliable date at checkout, keep eyes on the steps that might put that date at risk, and choose the lowest cost method that still meets it. Lets walk through how to put this into practice so your team stays fast, accurate, and in control for the holiday rush.
Set the date customers can count on
A reliable delivery date is the anchor of customers’ post-purchase experience. Predict a precise arrival date and present it at the digital checkout, so that the estimate that customers see is the estimate you meet. This is what Rithum’s Delivery Promise is designed to do, using real signals to calculate precise arrival dates that align with how shipments actually move.
Once the date is set, track how well you keep it. Use a single view of orders from creation to delivery, with alerts when handoffs are late or a shipment stalls. End-to-End (E2E) Monitoring provides dashboards and real time notifications so teams can spot issues early and avoid costly delays. One retailer raised on-time delivery from 94% to 99% during peak holiday season using E2E Monitoring.
Spend only where risk deserves it
After promise accuracy is stable, protect margin. Choose the lowest cost shipping method that still meets the date. Shipping Optimization compares carriers and service levels and automatically selects the best option for each order, which cuts down on manual routing and unnecessary upgrades.
Why better data makes better dates
Your predictions are only as good as the information behind them. Rithum connects brands, retailers, and suppliers at scale, which strengthens the signal used to set delivery dates, pick cost-effective ship methods, and surface problems early. More than 40,000 global brands use our products and services.
What to do next
- Set the date and measure it. Replace broad delivery windows with a single day whenever you can. Track the share of orders delivered by the date shown at checkout and make it a weekly metric everyone can see using Delivery Promise.
- Watch each order from click to doorstep. Turn on alerts for late handoffs, missed scans, packages sitting too long at a carrier facility, and final mile delays so teams act before customers ask by using E2E Monitoring.
- Pick the best method for each order. Keep the lowest cost option that still meets the date. Let Shipping Optimization make that choice automatically.
Peak periods will test these choices. Outcomes depend on your starting point and implementation, but the path is consistent: set a clear promise, track the steps that put it at risk, and spend only when the data says you need to. Learn more here.
Madison Jarvis is Senior Product Marketer, Retailers, at Rithum.
