Christmas Volume – Best Practice Guide 2024
With Christmas upon us and our carriers experiencing record volumes – we wanted to re-distribute our Christmas Best Practice guide to help our valued customers navigate the peak season.
This guide has various tips, tricks, and recommendations to help ensure freight entering the network is given every opportunity to arrive on time and damage-free.
Delivery Location Details
• Full business name per signage at delivery location.
• Contact name, email address and phone number.
• Any information required for delivery (Reference numbers, timeslot details, other requirements) provided in special instructions
• Selecting any applicable services required (Hydraulic tailgate, hand unload, residential delivery, dangerous goods).
Freight Presentation
• For urgent/time-sensitive freight we recommend using a second label on the freight as a safety net.
• If it is a custom item/one off – please take of photo of this.
• For ‘breakdown pallets’ use appropriate stickers. If you require some, please reach out to your account manager and we can send you some.
Special Requirements
• If your shipment is mission-critical, reach out to our support team to discuss a Clique Travel Guarantee shipment.
• If a shipment has multiple special requirements/delivery instructions – pre-alert our support team who will ensure the carrier is aware of these & monitor as required.
Booking Times
• More volume means the potential for more missed pickups and transit delays. Please ensure freight is booked and manifested as early as possible each day.
• Booking local courier consignments early in the day/on upgraded services such as express/priority leads to fewer ‘missed’ consignments.
Carriers Impacted Most at Christmas
While the Christmas rush impacts all carriers with increased volumes, certain carriers with a large portion of B2C consignments do feel the impact sooner, and more intensely than predominately B2B carriers.
The main carriers impacted by this are:
• Startrack
• AusPost
• Aramex
• Couriers Please
• Allied Express
• TGE Priority & IPEC
For these carriers, we certainly recommend allowing an additional one or two business days for expected transit times throughout this period.
Project Consignments/Full Trailer Loads
Project consignments and full trailer load shipments do get significantly more difficult to source in a timely, cost-effective manner, especially as we get close to December. Please provide as much notice as possible for these shipments to provide the best opportunity to source the required vehicle.
Satchels/Transport Stationary
Lead times for satchels and other transport-related stationery will increase over the coming weeks – we encourage all our customers to do a stocktake and place any orders in the coming fortnight to ensure you have adequate supplies for the Christmas period.
If you require satchels for TGE Priority or Startrack – our support team will happily order these for you.
Of course – despite doing all of these steps things will still go wrong from time to time. For these events – our support team of Emma, Michael, Janis, Dylan, Arnon, Tamara, Stacey and Georgia are available from 7am to 7pm Monday to Friday (ACDT) and will be happy to assist with any queries you may have.
To reach them – please contact them on:
Phone – (08) 8443 8213
Email – [email protected]
