Decide your last dispatch before Good Friday and your first after Easter, then tell customers in dates on every page, at checkout and in the confirmation email. Switch off express shipping you cannot honour this weekend.

Four days when parcels sit still

Tomorrow is Good Friday. For an online store, the long weekend starts this afternoon, whatever the calendar says.

Good Friday is a statutory holiday almost everywhere in Canada, and most carriers neither collect nor deliver. Little moves over the weekend itself. Easter Monday is patchy: some carriers and many businesses work, and others do not.

An order placed tonight, after your last collection, may not leave your building until Tuesday. Customers ordering over the weekend will not be thinking about that.

None of this is a problem if the store says so. It becomes one when the store says nothing and the customer does the arithmetic with an ordinary week in mind.

The weekend from your packing table

Monday is the day that causes confusion. Check your own carrier's holiday schedule and your own staff schedule, then tell customers what you will actually do, rather than leaving them to guess.

Why customers do not count the holiday

Most stores describe shipping in business days: ships within one business day, arrives in two to five. Customers read those as ordinary weekdays and do not subtract a holiday.

Some stores show an estimated delivery date at checkout. Many of the tools that calculate it count weekdays and know nothing about holidays unless someone enters them, so this weekend the date shown may simply be wrong.

And express shipping bought tonight moves no faster than standard if the parcel sits on your shelf until Tuesday.

Say it in dates, not business days

The notice that works gives dates and days, in plain words.

Something like: orders placed after noon on Thursday, March 29 will ship on Tuesday, April 3. Orders placed before then ship today.

Give the cutoff with its time zone. Noon in BC is three in the afternoon in Ontario, and a customer there reading noon will assume their own.

Put it in a banner across every page, in the cart, beside the shipping choices at checkout, and in the email confirming each order. A customer who misses it in one place catches it in another.

Repeat the dates in a post on your social accounts, which is where some customers look first when a parcel seems late.

If you answer email, set an auto-reply saying when you will be back and when orders will move. Four days of silence reads as a store that has disappeared.

Express shipping over a holiday

Selling express shipping on Thursday night for a parcel that cannot leave until Tuesday is charging for speed you cannot provide.

Either switch the express options off for the weekend, or rename them to say when the parcel will actually leave. Most store platforms let you disable or rename shipping methods in their settings.

If express orders come through anyway, refund the difference or upgrade the shipping when you dispatch. A customer who paid for speed and did not get it remembers the store, not the holiday.

A worked example

A two-person online beekeeping supply store ships hive boxes, frames and protective gear across Canada from a workshop behind the owner's house.

Last Easter it posted nothing. Orders placed on the Thursday evening and over the weekend went out on the Tuesday.

Several customers, waiting on frames to finish setting up hives before their bees arrived, wrote on Saturday asking where they were.

Some had paid for express shipping, and the store spent the following week refunding the difference and answering emails it could have prevented.

This year, a banner on every page gives the last dispatch time on Thursday and the next dispatch date. Express shipping is switched off from Thursday afternoon until Monday evening, and the confirmation email states the dispatch date.

An auto-reply covers the weekend. The weekend's orders still wait until Tuesday; the surprise is gone.

If you are working on Monday

Some stores dispatch on Easter Monday, and if your carrier collects that day, say so. It is a real advantage over stores that close.

Confirm the collection with your carrier first. A notice promising Monday dispatch, followed by a Monday with no collection, is worse than saying Tuesday from the start.

The same goes for staff. If one person packs everything, check that person is working on Monday before the website promises it.

Pickup and local delivery

A store with a shop or a pickup point has an option that does not depend on carriers at all.

Say plainly whether pickup is available over the weekend, on which days and at what hours. If you are closed until Tuesday, say that too.

For local customers who need something before Sunday, a clearly stated Saturday pickup may be the only way they can still buy from you.

Payments and returns

Holidays slow money as well as parcels. Payouts from your card processor may arrive later than usual, so do not plan supplier payments around the usual deposit.

If your returns policy counts business days, decide whether this weekend counts, and say so for anyone whose return window ends over Easter.

The counter-case

Some stores can keep this brief.

A store selling digital downloads, gift cards or anything delivered by email is unaffected, though its customer service hours still need saying.

A store whose customers rarely order to a deadline, and which ships a handful of orders a week, can manage with a line at checkout and an auto-reply.

But any store shipping physical goods to people who expect them by a date should publish its dispatch days for the weekend before the customer has to ask.

Before you close today

  1. Confirm your carrier's holiday collection days.
  2. Decide your last dispatch before Good Friday.
  3. Decide your first dispatch after Easter.
  4. Put both dates on every page and at checkout.
  5. Switch off express shipping you cannot honour.
  6. Add the dispatch date to the confirmation email.
  7. Set an auto-reply for the weekend.

Step five is the one that prevents the angriest emails. A customer who paid extra for speed has a specific grievance, and the store had the power to stop it at checkout.

A quiet long weekend is also a good time to tidy the catalogue itself, starting with product variants listed as separate products.

Frequently asked questions

Do carriers deliver on Good Friday?

Most neither collect nor deliver on Good Friday, which is a statutory holiday almost everywhere in Canada. Check your own carrier's holiday schedule before promising anything.

What happens on Easter Monday?

It varies. Some carriers and many businesses work, and others do not. Confirm your carrier's collection and your own staffing before promising Monday dispatch.

How should I tell customers about the closed days?

In dates rather than business days: when the last orders ship before the holiday and when dispatch resumes, on every page, at checkout and in the confirmation email.

Should I sell express shipping this weekend?

Not if the parcel cannot leave until Tuesday. Switch express off or rename it to show the real dispatch date, and refund the difference if orders come through.

Why are delivery estimates wrong over Easter?

Many estimate tools count weekdays and know nothing about holidays unless someone enters them, so a date shown at checkout this weekend may be too early.

Is weekend pickup worth offering?

If you can staff it, yes. For local customers who need something before Sunday, a clearly stated Saturday pickup may be the only way they can still buy.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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