Where Is My Order? Why Peak Season Is a Fulfilment Stress Test

One of the most dreaded phrases in today’s parlance is: where is my order?.

Consumers hate asking it and brands dread hearing it. For the most part it can be resolved quickly and easily – a replacement, a refund. However, when the question comes during or following a peak sales event like Black Friday, customer loyalty can be tested.

Imagine this scenario: Alex saw the perfect Christmas gift for their son during the Black Friday Sale. Click, click and the sale is complete; smooth and painless. After waiting for delivery, Alex gets in touch with the brand and asks: “Where is my order?”. The answer? There was a hiccup in our process but don’t worry we’ll refund you.

Not good enough. Alex can’t get the same item because it’s sold out and if they could, it would not be at the same price they initially paid. That equals one unhappy customer.

And hypothetical Alex isn’t alone.

Peak volumes expose weak links

This year – despite UK shoppers spending £3.8 billion online over the Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend – cracks began to show.

Shoppers at fashion retailers Debenham and Boohoo took to social media complaining of lost, late and missing parcels. And it wasn’t just traditional ecommerce retailers that felt the strain. TikTok Shop – which, according to its own newsroom, sold 27 items per second and ‘surpassed last year’s record-breaking Cyber Week performance by 50%’ – wasn’t without issues. Brands like Nex Playground were left apologising to customers after significant order delays on the back-end fulfilment side.

A further complication for Nex and other brands is that TikTok Shop has strict SLAs; if an order doesn’t ship within that time period (for example, within 2 business days for regular orders) the order is automatically cancelled and the customer refunded.

Not just parcels: platforms felt it too

There were other issues during the peak sales weekend.

Shopify experienced an outage on Cyber Monday. The biggest issue was that users weren’t able to access their accounts and process orders. In the UK, there were – according to Tech Radar – about 1,300 complaints.

There were also visibility glitches for platforms like Etsy that affected how sellers were being found, if they were being found at all. While this began before the peak period, it did have a significant impact on the Q4 results for sellers.

While they weren’t restricted to lost parcels, they are indicative that success, be it increased sales or boosted customer loyalty, or both, is dependent on everything in the chain functioning smoothly.

What does it all mean for ecommerce brands?

A fulfilment partner like Fullers can help brands do more than meet demand; they help protect customer promise, platform credibility and revenue. Instead of scrambling to catch up when orders surge, fulfilment becomes an engine that stays calm under pressure.

This year, we sent out 99% of our orders within the agreed Black Friday SLAs.

Engineered for peak, not disrupted by it

How? By treating peak as something to be engineered, not endured. For planned events like Black Friday – and unpredictable ones driven by social algorithms – Fullers works with brands to model likely order spikes, prepare inventory, configure storage layouts for faster picking, build in extra labour capacity and secure additional courier collections. The goal is simple: keep orders moving at speed when it matters most.

It also means avoiding single points of failure. Fullers draws on multiple courier partners rather than over-relying on one network, giving brands options if a carrier begins to lag or hits capacity. This spreads risk, maintains delivery momentum and reduces the chance of customers asking Alex’s painful question.

Technology plays a central role too. Fullers’ warehouse management system integrates with major ecommerce platforms and marketplaces, helping brands maintain accurate stock visibility, reduce overselling risk and protect dispatch performance on channels like Shopify, Amazon and TikTok Shop – even when order volumes surge. And when brands want clarity, shipment visibility tools like Follow My Parcel enable Fullers to not only track parcels, but also proactively identify any shipment issues so that parcels always stay on track – improving the customer experience.

Peak pressure without peak chaos

The result is a fulfilment operation designed to absorb shock rather than transmit it. Orders get out on time. Inventory stays in sync. Customers stay informed. Carriers stay balanced. And platforms trust the performance behind your shopfront.

Peak is always going to generate pressure. But with the right partner in place, it doesn’t have to generate chaos.

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