Plan Black Friday as a five-week peak: this is what two years of shipping data show
Six in ten of the extra shipments in peak season go out in the weeks before and after Black Friday. Planning for all five weeks means spreading carrier capacity and staff, and keeping checkout settings easy to change.
Peak season is a five-week job for carriers, warehouses and checkout teams. On the nShift platform, Black Friday carries more than twice the shipments of an ordinary Friday in early November, two years running, yet in both 2024 and 2025 most of the shipments above an average early-November week went out before or after Black Week, the Monday-to-Sunday week around Black Friday.
The figures cover outbound shipments across our whole platform, from late October to the end of December.
Agree extra carrier capacity for every week of the peak
In 2025 the week after Black Week still stood at 1.47 times an average early November week and accounted for a quarter of the extra shipments. The peak lasted about five weeks that year, from 17th November to 21st December. Black Week itself (24th to 30th November) peaked at 1.74 times the average and carried 40% of the extra shipments, while the week before carried 14%.
2024 followed almost the same pattern, and the week-by-week figures for both years are on our Black Friday hub. I would agree daily collection numbers with each carrier for all five weeks, with Black Week and the week after it as the two heaviest.
Plan Black Week Saturday like a weekday
On Black Week Saturday in 2025, shipments came to four times an ordinary Saturday and reached 90.8% of an ordinary Tuesday, because weekend volumes start low. The Sunday was 2.8 times an ordinary Sunday. I would give that Saturday weekday staffing and weekday carrier collections, especially in a warehouse that normally runs a light weekend shift.
Two days later, Cyber Monday was the busiest day of the 2025 season, with 8% more shipments than Black Friday, partly because Mondays carry more shipments than Fridays throughout the year. I would book the season’s largest carrier collections for that Monday.
Forecast each sending country separately
In Black Week 2025, shipments sent from the UK rose 112% above an average week, the highest of seven nShift sending markets, against 44% for shipments from Finland. Using one uplift figure for every country would have under-planned UK volumes, so build the forecast country by country, starting from your own campaign calendar.
Your own campaigns can create sharper peaks
Finnish retailer Stockmann, which runs nShift Checkout, holds its Crazy Days campaign twice a year, and on those days morning orders can jump to around 30 times a normal day. Through the surge, its checkout processes 2,000+ checkout API calls per minute. “If the checkout cannot handle this load, the success of the entire campaign is at risk,” says Jari Reinikainen, Logistics Director at Stockmann.
Stockmann’s logistics team can also adjust delivery methods while the sale is running: if a carrier runs into problems, the team can switch that method off in about 30 seconds. The customer story explains how Stockmann keeps checkout stable at that volume.
Make mid-peak changes in settings
Carrier capacity, integrations and major checkout changes may need months to arrange, so start with those. During the peak, you will adjust the rest of the plan as volumes come in: delivery offers that start and end with a campaign, a carrier option paused if its service becomes unreliable and return windows set for gifts. Your team can usually make these changes close to the date, as long as they are settings it controls.
Our experts show how to make them in a 30-minute live session on peak settings, following one Black Friday order from checkout to return and changing its delivery and returns rules in nShift, without a developer.
About the author
Jacob Hopewell is a Logistics and Retail Software Consultant at nShift, the global leader in multi-carrier shipping and delivery experience. He works with UK retailers and brands on delivery across checkout, shipping, tracking and returns. The nShift platform connects to over 1,000 carriers and supports over one billion shipments a year.
