Ah, the memories and joy of Valentine’s Day. From the little notes and cards exchanged with elementary school classmates to the forget-me-not moments with our friends, family, and significant others, this is the one day of the year when we go to extraordinary lengths to find special ways to express feelings of Amore. But behind the emotion and effort that we put into this one day of the year, there is a world-class logistics machine at work with every mode and service available, ranging from bulk trucking to carefully packed wines in specialty trailers.
According to GourmetGiftBaskets.com, more than 224 million roses are grown and sold for Valentine’s Day. Other gift purchases total an astonishing $18.6 billion, including cards, candy, and balloons. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of high-value gifts like diamonds, gold, silver, and other precious metals or stones. But to pull off this special day, a few things need to happen.
In an ideal world, all Valentine’s Day shipments will leave the warehouse for your facilities before January 31, but inclement weather and insufficient capacity can always influence rates and schedules. As a result, the whole holiday of love comes down to planning for the arrival of goods well before the holiday arrives. Yes, some brands do indeed put out Valentine’s Day freight early in January, but some items, like perishable chocolates and flowers, must move much closer to the end of January.
The other demand for a successful Valentine’s Day is on-time and in-full deliveries. Drivers need to deliver your goods on time, and they need to pick up all shipments on time. While this should be a year-round expectation, timely pickup and deliveries are essential to gaining and retaining more customers. That needs is amplified when people place orders for any holiday, not only Valentine's Day, and Edge Logistics can make more on-time deliveries happen. For example, the Edge CAPACITY app unifies resources and aides in finding high-quality drivers regardless of the holiday.
Any good romance story will inevitably involve a fine wine, but transporting beer, wine, and liquor means your transportation network may need additional licenses, certifications, and endorsements. Failure to maintain these requirements may lead to an even bigger antagonist in the love story of freight—fines and out-of-service designations for drivers, and your load of wines may not make it in time. But proper planning and attention to detail by obtaining these required certifications or endorsements will ensure more on-time deliveries.
A final cornerstone of a successful Valentine’s Day shipping strategy is recognizing the need for variety in your transport types. Due to the size of the U.S., and the fact love knows no borders, the exact temperature of the trailer interior may vary. In cooler regions, shipping in a dry van may be perfectly acceptable, but in places like Texas, it can feel like all four seasons happen in the same day. It might be cold enough to move milk chocolate in the early morning in Texas, but by noon, temperatures could turn those decadent treats into a soupy mess. The same also applies to transporting fresh flowers and, of course, fresh strawberries. As a result, it’s best to plan accordingly with reefer transport in regions where temperatures are forecast to climb and know when a dry van will work just fine.
Valentine’s Day brings out the romantics in us all, and for shippers, that means giving their customers the best gifts, but to do that, they still need their freight to arrive on time. They still need to have a plan for their regular deliveries, and they need access to enough capacity to make it happen.
In 2022 Valentine’s Day is the day after Super Bowl LVI, so reefer capacity is likely to be even tighter than usual in the week prior. And given that FedEx Freight has suspended some operations earlier in February, there will be a run on capacity even beyond what’s typical.
Clearly, the logistics of Valentine’s Day 2022 have their work cut out, and shippers will need more capacity. Connect with Edge Logistics to learn how you can make not only Valentine’s Day deliveries extra special but every delivery, every time, with more capacity and better rates through our award-winning CAPACITY app.
Now one final point: if you’ve actually realized that you still need to get that pallet of flowers, wine, chocolates, and cards to your retailers with less than a week until the big day, let Edge do the work by Requesting a Quote today!