By Ellie-Rose Davies, Content Executive at IMRG
With the peak trading period of 2025 just weeks away, retailers are making their final preparations. To support them, we spoke with top industry experts who shared their best advice for getting ready.
Read on to discover strategies for:
- Increasing customer engagement
- Approaching pricing and discounts
- Ensuring operational speed
- Optimising delivery and fulfilment
Increasing customer engagement
Retailers can approach preparing for Peak as an ongoing process, focusing on consistent, personalised experiences across channels.
Experts highlight the role of data, creative planning, and accurate customer information in supporting engagement and sales.
Managing Director EMEA at Shopify, Deann Evans recommends retailers to prepare for the peak trading period all year-round, helping to ensure that customer experiences are the best they can be. Deann says:
‘The holiday shopping period is fast approaching, and consumers are deep into their festive planning.
‘Merchants need to be ready – but not in one moment as the merchants who thrive during this period are those who treat preparation as a year-round discipline.’
‘To be successful merchants can build loyalty and deliver value for their customers by creating seamless experiences.’
‘Roughly 60% of UK shopping experiences start and end on separate surfaces according to Shopify research.’
‘It’s only by connecting all of those channels, and aspects of the business through a unified commerce approach, that merchants will be able to offer best-in-class, personalised, and ultimately, valuable experiences to shoppers this year.’
As well as preparing for Peak much in advance, retailers may choose to provide stand out experiences, taking approaches to differentiate themselves among their peers.
Gisela Benini, Client Strategy Director at Genie Goals says, ‘Last Black Friday showed us the risk of doing the same old thing. CPMs rose, conversion rates fell, and social feeds filled with identical “SALE!” ads.
She urges retailers to ‘Remember that people may not open Instagram or TikTok to shop, but to discover, and peak starts long before BFCM weekend.’
Gisela says to ‘Audit last year’s data by day, not just the month. Many shoppers actually jumped in the Friday before. You can shift budget to those windows, refresh creative, and test offers early.’
Genie Goals’ Head of Partnerships + Marketing, Hannah Hooton adds, ‘Last year proved that peak isn’t about chasing clicks, it’s about being ready when customers decide to buy.’
‘Retailers preparing for Peak 2025 should focus on building trust and reducing friction, from clear value messaging and reliable delivery to engaging content that drives early consideration.’
Hannah continues, ‘Owned channels can nurture loyalty while paid media captures new demand. Those who put customers first, keep messaging consistent, and plan for every touchpoint will be best placed to turn intent into sales when the pressure hits.’
Barley Laing, the UK Managing Director at Melissa, provides practical tips to help retailers ensure they’re engaging their customers.
He exclaims, ‘Putting in place steps to deliver up-to-date customer contact data is the foundation of delivering strong customer relationship management (CRM), and therefore in supporting retailers in driving sales and stand out over the crucial festive trading period.’
‘With up-to-date customer contact data products can be delivered quickly and efficiently, thereby enabling retailers to provide a standout customer experience, while avoiding costly returns,’ says Barley.
‘Also, having accurate data on users enables retailers to obtain valuable insight, such as a single customer view (SCV). This understanding can be used to improve targeting, including personalisation with communications, which enhances the user experience.
Approaching pricing and discounts
With many cost-sensitive consumers, retailers can ensure that their pricing and discounting strategies give them a competitive advantage but also are smart to protect profits.
Industry expert Prisync shares key pricing tips for Black Friday 2025, saying ‘As we are not far away from Black Friday, one of the most practical advice for retailers is to plan their promotions and prepare their stores/websites in advance.’
Preparing can include ‘setting your price strategy by thoroughly researching and analysing your competitors, considering what can attract customers and fulfil their expectations.’
Prisync say one of the ‘best ways to turn customer expectations -which is receiving the best deal- into profits this year is to apply the most suitable pricing strategy for your store.’
Dan Bond, VP of Marketing at RevLifter speaks on effective discount strategies, revealing how ‘Peak season success often starts with a smart promotion strategy, not just inventory planning.’
A big mistake retailers can make according to Dan is ‘treating Black Friday like a discount free-for-all.’
Instead, he recommends retailers to ‘use targeted promotions that protect margins while driving conversions. Test your promotion logic early – if your site crashes when applying a discount code, you’ve already lost the sale.’
Dan also suggests for retailers to ‘Use real-time data to adjust promotion intensity based on inventory levels and conversion rates. The retailers who win peak season view promotions as precision tools, not blunt instruments for clearing stock.’
Ensuring operational speed
As Peak approaches, retailers can focus on speed across their operations, from website performance and mobile experience to warehouse logistics and checkout processes.
Experts highlight the importance of ensuring systems and processes can handle high demand efficiently to keep customers engaged and transactions smooth.
Andra Muntean, Senior Marketing Manager EMEA at Athos Commerce says, ‘Promotions may drive traffic, but slow load times or poor search will lose it. Retailers should stress-test site search, clean and optimise product feeds for off-site channels, and treat every PDP like a storefront.’
She tells us that ‘Mobile shoppers often drop off quickly if pages lag, and irrelevant recommendations damage trust. Peak is not the time to test risky new tech. Focus on proven, scalable tools that help shoppers find the right product fast and complete their purchase.’
Stuart Greenfield, UK and European Sales Director at Advanced Supply Chain speaks on how to ensure logistics is up to speed ahead of peak season, stating ‘Retailers have large volumes of products arriving at their warehouses from multiple different suppliers and locations, and during short timeframes.’
‘Products have to be turned around quickly, so they are ‘retail ready’ for dispatch to consumers. Delays are by caused by vehicles having to queue for inundated loading bays at busy warehouses, as well as vehicles turning up unplanned and unannounced.’
Stuart says ‘It’s possible to use automated processes to fix these problems. For example, mobile kiosks in warehouses can help standardise and streamline packaging and labelling formats, driving retailer compliance and avoiding order rejections and time spent fixing errors.’
‘Kiosks can be connected to transport management systems to optimise vehicle scheduling to ensure vehicles arrive at the right times, minimising delays caused by queuing.’
Nikhita Hyett, General Manager EMEA at Signifyd echoes the need for ‘speed, security and personalisation at every step, from discovering products on social media to clicking ‘buy now’.’
Customers also want simple, fast and ‘hassle-free returns – With sale volumes surging 70-145% during peak season, a clunky returns process can quickly undo the hard work of winning a sale.’
Nikhita says ‘The key lesson from previous years is clear: convenience drives loyalty.’
‘Retailers who combine smooth payments and high authorisation rates with protection from fraud and abuse, along with simple, transparent returns, will not only stand out during the busy season, but they will also turn browsers into brand advocates.’
Optimising delivery and fulfilment
Delivery is an important element for retailers preparing for Peak. As Simon Dyer, Regional Vice President, UK & Nordics at Mirakl says, ‘Peak success is won before Black Friday.’
Simon suggests for retailers to ‘Finalise demand and capacity now, spread volume across multiple carriers and publish postcode-specific delivery cut-offs on product pages and at checkout.’
Also, retailers can ‘reduce “where is my order?” contacts with proactive texts and emails, live tracking and accurate delivery dates. Improve product data and imagery to set expectations and curb returns. Together, these steps remove friction at scale and keep teams focused on selling.’
Garth Stapleton, Head of Northern Europe at Parcel Perform also expresses the value of offering excellent customer experiences at the delivery stage. Now that AI is on the rise this is particularly important:
‘Peak 2025 is more than a seasonal rush; it’s a live audit by the AI shoppers who are active today.’
‘The game has already shifted from ads to algorithms. But how does an AI know which retailer to trust? It relies on the most public and influential Trust Signals available: what real customers say in reviews and on social media.’
Garth says, ‘Every on-time delivery and seamless experience minimises the risk of a negative review, which can create a permanent negative data point that AI agents will find.’
‘The goal is to deliver so flawlessly that this positive customer sentiment boosts their AI Visibility, making them a preferred choice for AI-driven recommendations.’
Considering all the recommendations together, this blog highlights the importance of preparing each stage of the customer journey well ahead of Black Friday; the discovery stage, consideration stage, and post-purchase/re-engagement stage.
We hope you found these practical insights valuable for your peak season planning, and wishing you all the best of luck.
For those looking to review Peak 2024, here is our report which details all key trends: Black Friday and Christmas Review 2024
Want to read more? Here are some other IMRG blogs that may take your interest:
The Overlooked 20% Advantage for Google Shopping Ads – IMRG
Agentic commerce is coming. Are your fraud and checkout systems ready? – IMRG
Getting BOPIS right: Key tactics for operational excellence – IMRG
The power of timing in retail promotions – IMRG
Turn Google Shopping ads into a retail brand-building machine – IMRG
Published 06/10/2025
