Last-Minute Readiness

American Girl receives most of its holiday orders during the three weeks following Thanksgiving. The biggest fulfillment challenge is to correctly manage order flow during that time. If it isn't done well, this creates a backlog situation and makes it tougher to meet order turnaround goals during the last week. So to help manage inventory and order flow, American Girl tries to entice customers to order early. Because buying trends can change quickly, this enables the cataloger to minimize the number of disappointed customers if a hot product is unavailable.