4 minutes
How businesses can prepare for a seasonal sales rush
Foot traffic spikes from holidays, tourism or a single viral moment. Follow these six steps to get your business ready before it happens.
Key points
- 2025 holiday sales topped $1 trillion for the first time, up 4.1 percent over 2024 (NRF) – and seasonal surges now stretch well past the winter holidays into back-to-school, summer travel and one-off local moments.
- Retail e-commerce chargeback rates climbed 233 percent between the first and third quarters of 2025 (Sift), so higher sales volume now arrives with higher dispute volume attached.
- Disputes Defender builds a response to each chargeback case automatically, so a small team keeps revenue instead of losing it to disputes during the exact weeks volume peaks.
Every small and mid-sized business has a season that decides the year. For most U.S. retailers, that season starts in November: The National Retail Federation reports 2025 holiday sales grew 4.1 percent over 2024, topping $1 trillion for the first time.
But a surge in foot traffic and online orders is not only a holiday story. Back-to-school, summer travel, a local festival or one post from the right person can bring a year's worth of customers through the door in a matter of weeks. The businesses that handle it best do not wait for the rush to start planning.
Here are six ways to get ready, whichever season is coming for you.
1. Start with the data you already have
Before ordering stock or building a schedule, look back at last season: which days sold out, which hours needed more staff, which locations outperformed. Commerce360 pulls sales and reporting from every location into one place, so a multi-location business can spot the pattern instead of guessing at it. Small business owners have good reason to take this step seriously: Constant Contact's 2025 Small Business Holiday Outlook found that 60 percent of small businesses expect the holiday season to account for up to half of their annual sales.
2. Meet customers wherever they pay
Cards, digital wallets, buy now pay later and cash all show up during a footfall spike, sometimes from the same customer in the same week. Our in-store and online payment options, together with a full mix of payment methods, cover in-person and digital sales without asking a business to run two separate systems.
3. Make every channel feel like one business
A customer who buys online should be able to pick up in store without a hiccup, and a staff member behind the counter should be able to see the same order history as the website. Our omnichannel platform connects those channels so inventory, sales and customer data move together.
Heine Brothers Coffee, an 18-location coffee company based in Kentucky and Indiana, used to update prices and menus one location at a time on an outdated point-of-sale system. Moving every store onto one connected system removed that manual work and gave the business one view across all 18 locations – the kind of visibility that matters most when volume is hard to predict.
4. Turn a single visit into a repeat customer
A footfall spike is a chance to build a longer relationship, not just a single sale. That opportunity is only getting bigger: Technavio projects the global gift card market will grow by $1.33 trillion between 2025 and 2029, while Capital One Shopping reports that 61 percent of consumers spend more than the value of their gift card when redeeming it, adding an average of $31.75 beyond the card balance. Gift cards and loyalty tools give a holiday or summer shopper a reason to come back once the season ends – and a reason to spend more when they do.
5. Get ahead of the disputes that come with more transactions
More transactions bring more chargebacks. Retail e-commerce chargeback rates climbed 233 percent between the first and third quarters of 2025, according to Sift's Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index, and disputes tend to cluster around the same high-volume periods small businesses depend on most. Disputes Defender builds a response to each chargeback case automatically, so a small team is not stuck fighting cases by hand during the busiest weeks of the year.
6. Plan for the swings, not just the peak
Seasons rarely arrive exactly as forecast: a shipment runs late, a heat wave changes what people buy, a viral moment brings in a crowd nobody scheduled for. Building in flexibility on staffing and stock helps a good problem, more customers than expected, stay a good problem.
Slow stretches deserve the same planning. Extra funding can help cover payroll, stock, equipment or unexpected expenses when sales dip, so the business is ready to move when demand returns. Look for options that are fast, flexible and simple to manage, with repayments that can adjust to sales rather than adding pressure during quieter weeks.
Whichever season is next on your calendar, preparing for it now costs less than reacting to it later. Talk to one of our small business specialists about getting ready for your next rush.
Seasonal rush FAQ
When does the busiest season start for most US small businesses?
How much of a small business's annual sales come from the holidays?
Do chargebacks increase along with sales during a rush?
What's the first step in preparing for a seasonal sales spike?
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