In 2024, Black Friday generated R$ 7.93 billion in online commerce, according to a survey by Abiacom (Brazilian Association of Artificial Intelligence and E-commerce). With the November promotional dates concentrating a volume of sales in a few days that many retailers take weeks or months to record, transportation and logistics are under direct pressure.
Furthermore, in a context where hundreds of billions of reais are transacted annually in national e-commerce, it is no exaggeration to say that the combination of Black Friday + Cyber Monday has become a real litmus test for the supply chain sector.
Black Friday & Cyber Monday: the peak season for logistics
From a logistics point of view, this period marks the start of the so-called peak season, which lasts until Christmas and the New Year, with high demand, tight deadlines and little margin for error.
Some characteristics of this moment:
- Abrupt peaks in demand: days when the volume of orders multiplies the normal flow.
- Maximum pressure on transport and distribution centers, with the risk of bottlenecks, delays and increased freight costs.
- Explosion of freight quotes and simultaneous transactions, requiring systems prepared for high competition and rapid decision-making.
- Growth in returns and exchanges, which can amount to around 30% of online purchases and tend to increase even more during promotions such as Black Friday.
In other words: anyone who treats Black Friday as a "commercial action" misses out on the opportunity to use it as a learning laboratory for the entire supply chain.
Five performance lessons from the last Black Friday & Cyber Monday season
- Demand forecasting can't depend on history alone
In many businesses, demand forecasting for Black Friday is still done by adding up history, "market sentiment" and commercial targets. The problem is that consumer behavior has changed. Today, they are omnichannel and more sensitive, whether it's to the cost of shipping or delivery times.
What's more, promotions start before the official Friday and extend into the post-event period. This requires more robust quantitative models, combining history, campaigns, channels, price elasticity and operation capacity.
- Stock and out-of-stock are critical indicators, not "side effects"
Recent studies show that large retailers have been able to reduce disruption on Black Friday by revising stock policies and reinforcing end-to-end visibility.
In other words, without mathematical sizing of stocks (by category, channel, region, desired service level), the operation is vulnerable: either there is a shortage of product in the items with the highest turnover, or there is stock left over after the season.
- Shipping, delivery time and capacity are just as strategic as the discount
The latest data indicates that freight and time have become decisive factors in conversion. Companies that treat logistics networks, stock allocation and transportation modes as strategic decisions and not just operational ones are better able to absorb peak sales, deliver faster and often reduce costs.
- Reverse logistics and after-sales need to be part of planning right from the start
With return rates of around 30% in e-commerce, and an upward trend during the Black Friday period, reverse logistics is no longer an exception. It is necessary to plan capacity, processes and return routes together with outbound planning, integrating costs, deadlines and impacts on the customer experience.
- Real-time data and scenario simulation make a difference
Recent Black Friday & Cyber Monday experiences have shown that two capabilities are decisive for supply chain performance: near-real-time visibility on orders, stocks and transportation, and structured use of scenario simulation to anticipate bottlenecks and reorganize resources before the problem occurs.
Without decision-making models that integrate this information and allow alternatives to be tested quickly, companies tend to go through the season "in the dark", reacting in a piecemeal, uncoordinated way and with results that are difficult to assess and improve in subsequent cycles.
How mathematical models enhance the continuous improvement cycle
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are events that generate a huge amount of operational data and this is exactly the kind of input that mathematical models know how to use very well.
With specialized supply chain solutions, it's possible:
- Optimize the logistics network design, simulating different network topologies, stock levels and modal combinations, with multiple objectives (cost, service level, emissions, risk).
- Optimize integrated supply chain planning (purchasing, production, transfer between DCs, distribution), taking into account capacity constraints, lead times and seasonality.
- Planning stocks in a quantitative way, defining optimum levels by product, channel and location, rather than just working with "rules of thumb".
- Support tactical and operational decisions in near real time, with models capable of running scenarios in minutes and indicating the best response to shortages, delays or sudden changes in demand.
This is exactly where Linear Softwares Matemáticos operates: bringing applied mathematical modeling and optimization solutions to real supply chain cases, translating complexity into objective decisions for decision-makers and analysts.
Conclusion
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are not just "promotional dates". They function as a huge, high-demand simulator for the entire supply chain. Rather than just "surviving" the next season, the challenge is to use the dates as a lever to build a more robust, efficient and resilient operation all year round.
If your company wants to reduce disruptions, delays and logistics costs without losing service levels or needs to use peak data to redesign its network, stocks and planning in a structured way, Linear Softwares Matemáticos can be your partner on this journey.
With solutions based on mathematical optimization and simulation models, such as those for integrated supply chain planning, Linear can help you:
- test scenarios before investing;
- Quantitatively sizing stocks and capacity;
- make highly complex decisions more safely and quickly.
Do you want to take your supply chain to the next level on Black Friday & Cyber Monday? Get in touch with Linear and discover how to turn peak data into consistent results for the business throughout the year.
