Were You Ready for Holiday Season 2013?

There will be less time to reorder and restock hot-selling items, process returns or correct shipping screwups. Online traffic, whether it's credit card charges being processed, reorders being put through, shipments being tracked or drivers being dispatched, will be very heavy.

And should heavily populated areas of the country, or even just key shipping centers like Louisville, Memphis, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, New York or Los Angeles, get hit by a major winter storm, there will be little capacity or ability to catch up from the resulting delays.