Work backwards from your cutoff date. Stock and suppliers first, then messaging, then staffing, then the things that can be done in the week itself.

Work backwards, not forwards

A December checklist written forwards produces a list of everything, in no order, most of which will not get done.

Worked backwards from the shipping cutoff, the same list sorts itself, because each item has a last possible date attached.

Anything involving a supplier carries the earliest deadline, and anything you control alone has the latest.

So the sequence below is ordered by when a thing stops being possible, rather than by how important anybody thinks it is.

Importance sorts itself once the deadlines are visible.

Six weeks out: the supplier decisions

The fourth is the one that catches people. A supplier closing on the fifteenth changes every plan that assumed a mid-December reorder, and finding out in December rather than now is the difference between adjusting and improvising.

Four weeks out: the messaging

Which is the week where most of the useful work happens.

Publish the cutoff dates, everywhere they need to appear.

Write the out-of-stock wording you will need, before you need it, so it is not written in a hurry.

Update the shipping page with December-specific timings rather than your usual ones.

Set the holiday hours on the site and on every listing.

And write the replies you will send fifty times, which is an afternoon now and an hour a day later.

Three weeks out: the staffing

Since anybody helping needs briefing before the volume arrives, not during it.

Decide who is covering what, including the days you would normally be closed.

Write the two-page brief for anybody temporary.

Agree who answers the telephone and messages, and when.

Decide what happens if you are ill, which is the plan nobody makes and December is exactly when it is needed.

Doing all of this a full three weeks out means the first genuinely busy day is simply a busy day rather than a scramble.

A worked example

A shop worked backwards from a cutoff of the eighteenth.

That put final restocks at the eighth of November, since their main supplier needed three weeks.

They discovered, asking, that the supplier closed on the eleventh of December entirely, which they had not known.

One line item was reordered that would otherwise have run out on the fourteenth with no route to more.

Everything else was written and scheduled by the end of November.

December was busy without being chaotic, which they attributed almost entirely to the supplier question asked in early November.

One phone call had shaped the whole season.

Two weeks out: the technical checks

Which are quick and only useful before the traffic arrives.

Place a test order yourself, all the way through, and check the confirmation email arrives and reads correctly.

Check the site on a phone, since December traffic skews further to mobile than the rest of the year.

Confirm your payment processor is not going to hold funds on an unusual volume, which is worth a call rather than an assumption.

Check the certificate does not expire in the next six weeks.

None of these takes long, and all of them are impossible to fix calmly on the twelfth of December.

Do them on a quiet afternoon while there is still slack in the week.

The week itself: stop changing things

Which is the discipline that matters most.

Once the volume arrives, the site should not be edited, the theme should not be updated, and no new feature should be added.

Every change in a busy period is a risk taken at the worst moment for very little gain.

Keep a list of everything you notice and do it in January, when a mistake costs nothing.

The only edits worth making are stock messages, cutoff updates, and correcting something actually broken.

That restraint is worth more than any preparation on this list.

Write next year's list in January

Which is the cheapest thing here and never gets done.

In the first week of January, while it is fresh, write down what ran out, what took too long, what you wished you had written earlier, and which supplier closed when.

That document becomes next November's checklist and it takes about twenty minutes to produce.

Nobody has ever regretted writing it and almost nobody writes it.

Every year it gets shorter and more specific to your business.

The generic version of this list is worth something and your own version is worth considerably more.

Decide what you will not do

Which is the half of planning that gets left out and matters more in a compressed period.

December has no spare hours in it, so anything added has to displace something, and deciding in advance what stops is what keeps the rest working.

The obvious candidates are the things with no deadline attached: new product photography, the site improvements, the supplier review, and any project that has been drifting since September.

Write those down as deliberately paused until January rather than leaving them on a list you feel guilty about weekly.

A shop owner with a short honest list of what is happening works better than one carrying a long list of what should be.

The counter-case

Not every shop has a December.

A business selling to trades, to other businesses, or in a category with no gift dimension may find December quieter than October.

Preparing heavily for a peak that does not arrive costs real money in stock that sits until spring.

And a shop in its first year has no basis for any of these decisions, and should prepare lightly, observe closely, and write everything down.

That first December is as much research as it is trading.

Write down everything, since next year's plan comes entirely from it.

Work backwards from the cutoff, resolve supplier questions six weeks out, write the messaging at four, and change nothing in December.

The countdown

  1. Six weeks: supplier orders and closures.
  2. Six weeks: packaging and printing.
  3. Four weeks: cutoffs published.
  4. Four weeks: replies written.
  5. Three weeks: staffing briefed.
  6. Two weeks: test order placed.
  7. December: change nothing.

Step one is the item with no recovery, since a supplier who closed on the eleventh cannot send you anything on the fourteenth whatever you are willing to pay.

The site-readiness side is covered in preparing the site for a busy December.

Frequently asked questions

Why work backwards?

Because each item has a last possible date attached, so the list sorts itself. Anything involving a supplier has the earliest deadline.

What comes first?

Supplier decisions at six weeks: final restocks, packaging, carrier deadlines, and asking every supplier when they close for the holidays.

What is the question people miss?

When suppliers close. A supplier shutting on the eleventh changes every plan that assumed a mid-December reorder.

What happens at four weeks?

Messaging: publish the cutoffs, write the out-of-stock wording before you need it, update the shipping page, set holiday hours, and draft the replies.

What should I check at two weeks?

Place a test order yourself, check the confirmation email, check the site on a phone, ask your processor about volume, and check the certificate expiry.

What is the most important discipline?

Changing nothing once the volume arrives. Keep a list of what you notice and do it in January, when a mistake costs nothing.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Six weeks from your cutoff?

Ask every supplier today when they close. That is the only item with no recovery.

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