Order dates, shipping dates, delivery dates, and return dates are essential to delivering on time. The accurate dates help ease customers’ frustrations, streamline fulfillment processes and reduce cart abandonment, which is 50% due to unsatisfactory shipping options and 6% due to slow shipping.
Well, you can use a solution like Magento 2 Delivery Date extension for on-time deliveries, store optimization, and delivery person’s efficiency. This extension lets you track all the shipping dates and manage orders accordingly. So let’s learn how you can create a seamless shipping experience with Magento 2 Delivery Time Extension.
But, first, discover those shipping dates.
Shipping Dates To Track
“When can I expect the delivery?” Here are the dates and the fulfillment process you need to know to give a proper answer to this question:
1. Order Date
This is the actual date on which the customer orders the product. Let’s say that a buyer ordered a pair of sneakers on Tuesday at 8 PM. Now that’s the order date.
It’s essential to track it because the order may not ship on the same date. There are a lot of fulfillment processes involved before shipping, such as accepting orders and packaging. Shipping cutoffs and weekends could also be the reason why orders won’t ship on the same day. If a customer orders on the weekend outside your business hours, you may delay the shipping until Monday or another working day. Knowing the order date is important to ensure you don’t miss out on the orders and ship on time.
Order date also helps you know the total orders you receive in a day and whether your efforts show results.
2. Shipping Date
A shipping date means the order has left the store and handed over for delivery. Say, a customer ordered sneakers on Tuesday at 8 PM, and the order was shipped on Wednesday at 8 PM. So, Wednesday is the shipping date. Sometimes, the ship date may be longer considering various factors such as international shipping or weekend transit.
Shipping date helps you identify how much longer you take to hand orders to transit. This way, you can improve your process and ensure packing and shipping are on time.
3. Estimated Shipping Date
The estimated shipping date is an educated guess of when the order is expected to leave the store and get delivered. As it’s an estimation, the actual shipping date may be earlier or later due to various reasons such as:
- Order Fulfillment Cutoffs
If a customer places the order after cutoff hours, the order may not ship till the next day. This can add a day to the delivery. The best example is the 10 AM and 10 PM difference.
- Back Orders
If the order gets out of stock before delivery, it may add up the delivery date. In such a situation, you can give customers an estimated shipping date.
This helps them track their pick, pack, and ship process. If there’s a huge difference between an estimated and actual shipping date, it can help you focus on the internal issues that need to be addressed.
4. Estimated Delivery Date
The estimated delivery date is the date on which a customer can expect the order delivery. It’s generally calculated after the package is out for delivery.
Several factors, such as bad weather and vehicle breakdowns, can affect the delivery. Hence it’s an estimation. It is the approximate days considering the unforeseen situations. Having an order tracking feature would be an added advantage.
It gives customers an idea of when they can expect the orders.
5. Delivery Date
This is the date when the customer receives the order. It may or may not match the estimated delivery date due to various reasons such as customs clearance, failed delivery attempts, wrong delivery address, federal holidays, etc.
The delivery date is important as it helps you gain insight into meeting your customer expectations.
6. Return Date
The return date is when you (seller) receive the returned order. Usually, a customer is given a return window in which they can return the item. You can add a duration like return in 7 days or 14 days.
It’s important to track return dates as it helps you figure out how often customers return products. What measures do you need to take to drive customer satisfaction and reduce cart abandonment?
How to Estimate Delivery Time
Now that you know the shipping dates, here’s how to estimate the delivery time:
For estimated shipping date, consider order date and the time it takes to pick, pack, and ship. You can add this to your delivery date process.
To calculate the estimated delivery date, take the estimated shipping date and add transit time. Various factors and shipping services may affect the delivery. For instance, cheap and slow delivery options may not guarantee on-time delivery. Long routes may take longer to deliver. Hence, consider options like overnight delivery services.
If you’re shipping abroad, you might have to consider federal holidays like New Year’s, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, etc. These days shipping services are not available, and you may have to add this in your delivery calculation.
No worries! Thanks to the Delivery Date Magento 2 extension, you can pre-define all the holidays to auto-calculate the shipping and delivery.
Deliver on Time with Magento 2 Delivery Date Extension
Shipping and delivery dates are important for customer satisfaction and repeat orders. If a customer knows when they’ll receive their order or can expect, they will likely order. Having a tracking feature to know about the order in real-time would be helpful.
Another way is to integrate a Delivery Date Magento 2 extension that helps you handle your orders and streamline the shipping process.
With our Magento 2 Delivery Time extension, you can:
- Offer Same Day and 2 Day Delivery
You can compete with big brands like Amazon by setting the same-day delivery option. When enabled, customers can ask for same-day or next-day delivery. You can auto-set the prices based on the delivery date and even limit daily delivery intake. For instance, you can decide to deliver 200 orders per day.
- Accurate ETAs
Knowing the estimated delivery date can increase conversion rates. Hence, our Magento 2 Delivery Time extension allows customers to select a particular date and time for delivery.
By auto-calculating the shipping date, working days, holidays, and other estimates, the extension will provide the available delivery date options. Customers can then select the appropriate day and time for delivery.
This decreases the back and forth and helps you serve better.
Along with these, Magento 2 Delivery Date offers remarkable features such as order tracking, email reminders, countdown timer for same-day delivery, adding comments, etc.
Integrating it is the right fit for your business!
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