The holiday shopping season amplifies the challenges of dropshipping, with return rates expected to be 17% higher than the annual average. A reactive approach to returns is no longer enough to protect your profits. To win the peak season, you need a proactive, prevention-first strategy.

This comprehensive checklist provides a week-over-week framework to ensure your dropship operations are prepared for the rush, enabling you to stop returns at the source and maximize profitability.

In this checklist, you'll find:

• A clear timeline with actionable steps for the critical weeks leading up to, during and after the peak season.

• Key activities to complete, from auditing product data and fixing critical gaps to validating supplier compliance.

• Essential performance KPIs to track, including supplier compliance scores, issue resolution time and return rates by category.

• Target metrics to benchmark your performance against, helping you measure success and identify areas for improvement post-peak.