It’s officially October, and spooky season is upon us. Starting now, consumers are on the hunt for scary centerpieces to add a touch of eerie elegance, terrifying animatronics to spook trick-or-treaters, and ghoulishly frightening costumes for social gatherings. 

And, sometimes, the opportunity to scare up some fun comes at the last minute, with little warning before shoppers need to conjure up some creativity.

Retailers have opportunities to respond to unique, once-a-year demands and take advantage of the sales surge that an event like Halloween — or Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or Christmas — can bring. When consumers are up against a deadline in these seasons, same-day delivery becomes a non-negotiable.

Take a look at Spirit Halloween, whose flexibility is key to keeping up with high-volume, seasonal demand as it happens. For approximately eight weeks out of the year, these holiday-concept stores transform vacant spaces into temporary haunts filled with whatever Halloween-obsessed consumers might be looking for this time of year.

While the appearance of hundreds of stores around the country may seem like magic, the fact is that companies running large pop-up store networks know how to spin up operations quickly as they search for seasonal staff and vacant store locations. When these businesses want to boost sales further by also selling goods online, that effort must extend beyond the store and into building flexible last-mile solutions that can ramp up same-day delivery along with those operations. 

By tapping into a white-labeled, on-demand delivery platform to offer same-day delivery on e-commerce orders, these retailers – and others – can serve customers who may not want to fight their way through crowded aisles to claim what they want. E-commerce also offers retailers the opportunity to own more of the customer experience and offer a wider range of products. 

It’s more than a bunch of hocus pocus just for Halloween, too. This approach is possible for retailers whose peaks come at other times of year because it easily integrates with common logistics offerings like buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS). Solutions like Roadie help brands tailor same-day delivery programs to their capabilities and available resources — even when those resources change frequently.

Here’s how: 

Batching order pickups

With rapid peaks occurring for almost any industry, retail environments need the ability to respond to sudden and unpredictable order increases in virtually any geographic location, especially as the calendar rolls closer to a peak event. 

“When you operate a retail company that requires you to hire many people at once, without lots of time left for training or onboarding, the ability to establish your own pickup times can help seasonal workers better deal with changes in demand,” said Rachel Zarach, business development manager for Roadie, a UPS company.

To make it easier for on-the-ground employees to manage orders, a winning same-day solution should keep you in control. With an on-demand solution like Roadie, retailers can choose one or more pick-up times that are best for their operations. That way, employees know when to expect an influx of drivers to arrive and have time to fulfill online orders for pickup. They can also reallocate internal resources based on the number of in-store shoppers and the number of drivers arriving to pick up orders.

Creating scalable infrastructure

Volume projections and surges in geographic regions can creep up on retailers. The ability to instantly scale up and down to match demand is only possible with a crowdsourced delivery model. Traditional carrier and courier models struggle to match this level of flexibility due to rigid cutoff times and fixed numbers of drivers and vehicles.

A crowdsourced model is fast and easy to get off the ground, with no minimum volume commitment and no capital investment required. When many unexpected orders come in at the same time, the number of available drivers and delivery vehicles is virtually unlimited.

“Flexing during peak is critical. You may be handling tens of thousands of deliveries across hundreds of locations in a matter of weeks,” Zarach explained. “Even if projections change frequently or are determined on short notice, Roadie’s solutions can scale to match.”

Hauling orders of all sizes

A peak event like Halloween is the time to go all out for some shoppers. You’ve probably seen 12-foot-tall skeletons or oversized zombie silhouettes in your neighborhood. In another month, those skeletons will be replaced with 12-foot Santas, and the zombies will give way to snowmen and reindeer. Consumers are buying items of all sizes online, making it tough for retailers to deliver — literally. While most carriers and couriers struggle to deliver supersized monsters and mummies, a crowdsourced delivery platform like Roadie can match delivery items with a vehicle that can handle its size.

Controlling the customer experience

Delivery should be an extension of the customer shopping experience. If a customer has to copy and paste a tracking number into another website to track their order, their experience is already diminished. Retailers need more than quality delivery. They must also ensure a seamless customer experience by choosing a platform that allows retailers to white-label real-time tracking info. That way, the customer can monitor the status of their order in one place and maybe even buy something else while they’re at it.

The Roadie platform gives retailers the option of instant scalability, the ability to batch order pickups, easy big and bulky order delivery, white-labeled delivery tracking and order accuracy with barcode scanning. This time of year, if something wicked this way comes, it’s likely a same-day delivery order. 

Find out how crowdsourced delivery can improve your business operations no matter when your peak may be.