Play to win: 6 strategies for peak season execution
The six strategies leading retailers use to execute flawlessly when peak season demand surges during events such as the World Cup, back-to-school and Black Friday.
Key findings
- Peak seasons can account for up to 30% of annual revenue, making flawless execution critical.
- During the World Cup, UK consumers are forecast to spend £3.8 billion across retail and hospitality with almost £2 billion of that on food and drink alone.
- Retailers adopting activity-based labor scheduling during peak seasons have cut labor costs by up to 12% while improving both customer service and employee satisfaction.
Summary
Major sporting events like the FIFA World Cup create predictable demand surges that sharply increase operational complexity as retailers scale stores and seasonal hires. During these high-pressure periods, even minor execution gaps mean missed targets, higher costs, and frustrated customers across large, distributed store networks.
This playbook lays out six strategies for peak-season execution—belonging, empowerment, collaboration, data, standardization, and innovation—with real results from Mattress Firm, Shoprite, Desigual, Boots, CELINE, and Moschino. Market figures are drawn from VoucherCodes/GlobalData, Kantar, and McKinsey & Company.
What you’ll learn
- How to build belonging fast for seasonal hires and empower frontline teams to act decisively.
- How to turn frontline data into real-time decisions and standardize best practices across every location.
- How named retailers achieved outcomes like 95%+ on-time critical processes and 98% training completion at scale.
