Dematic’s Terry Jamieson says the retailers who nail Black Friday and Christmas start preparing months out, not in October when it’s already too late.
If you run a retail business in Australia, mid-July can feel like a strange time to be thinking about Christmas. EOFY sales have just wrapped, the shop floor is quiet, and Black Friday still feels months away. According to supply chain and warehousing specialist Dematic, that’s exactly the problem. The company is urging retailers to use this window, not October, to get their operations in shape before peak trading hits.
The planning window is now
Last year’s pre-Christmas trading period gives a sense of scale. The six weeks from mid-November to Christmas Eve generated an estimated $72.4 billion in spending nationally, a 4 percent increase on the year before, according to Australian Retailers Association and Roy Morgan data. Black Friday and Cyber Monday trading are forecast to grow at a similar rate again this year. The pressure doesn’t ease once Christmas Day passes either. Spending across the full post-Christmas week is forecast to reach roughly $3.8 billion.
Terry Jamieson, Business Development Manager at Dematic Australia, said the businesses that consistently perform well during Black Friday and Christmas are usually the ones that start preparing months in advance.
“Peak season doesn’t start when the first Black Friday email lands in someone’s inbox. It starts back here, in the middle of the year, when warehouse teams are reviewing systems, testing processes and identifying last year’s bottlenecks. If you wait until October to think about it, you’re already behind.”
What’s actually at stake
Jamieson pointed to a handful of issues that tend to surface once volumes spike: delayed deliveries, inaccurate inventory counts, slower click-and-collect fulfilment, and labour costs that climb faster than expected. Visibility, he said, is often the root cause.
“You would be surprised how many retailers still don’t have a real-time view of inventory across every sales channel. When customers expect click-and-collect within the hour, there isn’t room for guesswork. If your systems can’t tell you exactly what’s available, you’re going to disappoint customers, and during peak season trading those mistakes become much more costly.”
Margins are tighter this year
This peak season lands against a tougher economic backdrop than last year’s. Deloitte Access Economics’ latest quarterly Retail Forecasts, released in May 2026, found retail turnover is expected to grow by 1.8 percent in 2026, down from 2.3 percent in 2025. Deloitte Access Economics partner David Rumbens said retailers are being squeezed from both sides, with slowing growth, falling real wages and weak consumer sentiment putting the brakes on turnover, while cost pressures on the supply side continue to build.
For SMEs already watching margins closely, that combination leaves less room to absorb the kind of operational hiccups Jamieson describes. Dynamic Business recently reported on how much harder this stress is landing on small retailers specifically, with on-time payment rates in the sector falling sharply through early 2026.
Labour isn’t the whole fix
One of the most common mistakes Jamieson said retailers make is assuming extra casual staff will solve peak season pressure on its own.
“Retailers often assume bringing on more casual staff will solve the problem. But if warehouse layouts and processes aren’t designed to support larger, less experienced teams, extra labour simply shifts the bottleneck rather than removing it. Hiring more people isn’t enough. Warehouse layouts, workflows and warehouse management systems also need to support larger seasonal teams. Otherwise, businesses simply add labour without increasing throughput.”
Dematic isn’t suggesting retailers overhaul their entire operation before this Christmas. Jamieson said the realistic goal for 2026 is getting more out of existing systems, better inventory visibility, tighter processes, more efficient labour deployment, while using this year’s peak season as a testing ground for bigger automation or software investments further out.
“Retailers shouldn’t expect to install a new automated solution before this Christmas. But they should absolutely be using this year’s planning window to assess whether their existing operation will meet future demand. The businesses that start designing warehouse improvements now will be in a much stronger position for peak trading in 2027.”
Consumer expectations aren’t easing up either. Dynamic Business has covered how Australian SMEs are adjusting to shoppers who want faster, more personalised service across every channel in 2026, a trend that puts even more weight on retailers getting fulfilment basics right before the rush hits.
“The businesses that perform best over the long term don’t simply react to each Christmas rush,” Jamieson said. “They review what worked, identify where the bottlenecks were, and start designing improvements months in advance. That’s how you build a supply chain that’s ready not just for this year’s peak, but for the years ahead.”
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