5 Essential Reviews for Your E-commerce Business Post-Christmas/Q4 🎄
- Charlie McBroom
- Dec 22, 2025
- 4 min read
The rush of Christmas and Q4 is over. Your revenue charts are spiking, but your team is knackered, and your warehouse is recovering. Before you jump into the new year's sales targets, you must perform a critical business review.
The performance metrics and operational stresses exposed during the holiday peak are your most valuable, unvarnished data. By reviewing these five key areas—across both operations and marketing—you can ensure your next years foundation is built on efficiency, not just adrenaline.
1. Fulfilment Bottlenecks & Labour Efficiency (Operations)
Q4 pushes your operational capacity to the limit. Where did your system break down?
The Review: Scrutinise your fulfilment cycle time (the time from order received to order shipped). Look for spikes in processing time and identify the specific stage where the backlog occurred:
Picking: Was the warehouse layout efficient, or did pickers spend too much time walking?
Packing: Did custom packaging demands slow down throughput?
Shipping: Did courier cut-offs or manually generating labels cause delays?
Actionable Step: Review your temporary labour spend. Calculate the cost of temporary staff versus the revenue generated, and determine if you should invest in automation technology (like an improved Order Management System or dedicated packing stations) instead of relying on seasonal staff next year. If you use an OMS (like Linnworks or Veeqo), audit your picking reports to spot inefficiencies in your current flow.
2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) & Channel ROI (Marketing)
Did your expensive holiday marketing campaigns actually pay off, or were they just burning cash?
The Review: Calculate your true Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) during Q4, breaking it down by channel (Google Ads, Facebook, TikTok, Email). Compare your Q4 CAC to your Q3 CAC. A temporary spike is expected, but if the cost was astronomical, review the specifics.
The Focus: Identify the campaigns that delivered high-volume, high-margin sales versus those that delivered high volume but barely broke even due to deep discounting.
Actionable Step: Use the data to re-allocate your Q1 budget. Cut low-ROI channels immediately and double down on the platforms (e.g., specific Google Shopping campaigns or email segments) that delivered customers with the highest Average Order Value (AOV) and the lowest returns rate.
3. Stock Accuracy and Stock-Outs (Operations)
Q4 is where poor stock management is punished the most—both through missed sales and overselling.
The Review: Audit your stock-out history. How many times did your system show stock when you were physically out? Conversely, did you have slow-moving stock take up valuable warehouse space?
The Hidden Cost: Overselling leads to cancelled orders, refunds, and negative reviews, especially during peak season. Stock-outs are lost revenue that went straight to a competitor.
Actionable Step: Implement a cycle counting process immediately to correct Q4 discrepancies. If you rely on manual counting, now is the time to invest in a unified Inventory Management System that provides a single, real-time source of truth across all your sales channels.
4. Post-Purchase Experience and Returns (Marketing/Operations Crossover)
The holiday shopping experience doesn't end when the parcel is delivered; it ends when the returns window closes.
The Review: Analyse your returns rate, specifically breaking it down by reason (e.g., "damaged," "wrong size," "did not need"). High rates of "damaged" point to poor packing SOPs (Operations); high rates of "wrong size" point to poor product descriptions or sizing guides (Marketing).
The Opportunity: Review your customer service response time and resolution quality during the peak. Did your templated responses work, or did complex issues overwhelm your team?
Actionable Step: Refine your returns SOPs (Operations) for faster processing and refunding. On the Marketing side, use the returns reasons to improve product photography, copy, and FAQs for the current year's listings, heading off future returns at the point of sale.
5. System Health and Data Integrity (Both)
The performance of your technology directly determines the ceiling of your growth.
The Review: How well did your core systems perform? Did your website crash during peak hours? Did your Order Management System (OMS) struggle to push 1,000 orders an hour? Were there manual "patches" or data fixes required to keep things flowing?
The Risk: If you had to perform manual workarounds to handle the volume, your current systems are not built to scale reliably. They are creating technical debt.
Actionable Step: Schedule a technical health check. Document every manual workaround and pain point, and consult with a technical expert to integrate or upgrade your core systems (OMS, ERP, WMS). Investing in robust system integration now is the only way to guarantee stability for the next Q4 peak.
The post-Christmas slump is a strategic gift. Use this time to stop reacting and start proactively building the efficient, scalable operation your business needs.
Ready to turn your Q4 pain points into profitable, automated workflows? Fitted Commerce specialises in deep-diving into your operations, integrating powerful systems like Linnworks and Veeqo, and refining your marketing data flow to prepare your business for scalable growth.