Shipping Promises After One-Day Delivery

What changed yesterday

Amazon said yesterday that it is moving its Prime delivery in the US from two days towards one. The announcement is about the US, and it describes a plan rather than something finished.

Expectations do not stop at the border. Canadian shoppers buy from the same large retailers, and each announcement like this shifts what fast means to them.

A small online store cannot match it. It does not have the warehouses, the volume or the delivery network, and it should not pretend otherwise.

It does not need to. Most customers do not need their order tomorrow; they need to know when it will come, what it will cost, and whether the store is telling the truth.

What a customer wants to know

• When it will arrive, as a range they can plan around.
• What delivery costs, before the last step of checkout.
• When it ships, and the daily cutoff for same-day dispatch.
• Whether they can collect it, and how soon.
• What happens if it is late, and who to contact.

The second is where many carts are abandoned. A charge first seen on the final screen feels like a trick, even when it is fair, and a customer who feels tricked closes the tab.

Honest estimates beat fast vague ones

Fast shipping in a header means nothing to a customer, because it has no number in it. An estimate does.

Write it in two parts. First the dispatch time: orders placed by a stated hour on a business day leave that day.

Then the transit time, as a range of business days for each region you ship to.

Take the ranges from your own recent orders, not from a carrier's best case. Most order systems keep the date shipped, and tracking numbers show the date delivered.

A range you already meet on almost every order is a promise you can keep. Weekends, holidays and remote addresses belong in a plain sentence, not in small print.

Show the cost early

Shipping costs belong on every product page, in the cart and on a delivery page linked from both, not only at checkout.

A flat rate is the easiest to show. If rates depend on weight or distance, a short table by region with typical order sizes gives customers a fair idea before they commit.

A free shipping threshold, shown in the cart with how much more would qualify, works because it gives the customer a choice rather than a surprise.

Local pickup is the fastest delivery there is

For customers within driving distance of a store with premises, pickup beats any carrier. An order placed in the morning can be ready the same afternoon, at no cost to anybody.

Offer it at checkout as a delivery option, say when orders are usually ready, and send an email when this one is.

Pickup also brings the customer through the door, where they see the rest of the shop and meet the people who packed their order.

A worked example

A tea shop in a small BC town sells loose-leaf tea over the counter and through a small online store attached to its website.

Orders went out twice a week, whenever there was time to pack. The header promised fast shipping, and the shipping charge, calculated by weight, first appeared on the last screen of checkout.

Customers in the same town paid to have tea posted to them from a shop five minutes away, because there was no other option. And every week brought emails asking where an order was.

The shop began packing every weekday at the same time, with a published cutoff an hour before. A delivery page gave ranges by region, taken from the previous few months of tracking numbers.

A flat rate went onto every product page with the free shipping threshold beside it, local pickup was added at checkout, and the promise of fast shipping came out of the header.

Customers now had the answer to where their order was before they needed to ask.

Same-day delivery in town

Some stores can go further for local customers. A defined area, a cutoff time and one or two set delivery runs a day can make same-day local delivery manageable for a business with a vehicle.

Define the area by postal code rather than by distance, since customers know their postal code and few know how far they live from you.

Start small, with one run a day or a few days a week, and widen it only once it works without disrupting the shop.

Writing the delivery page

One page should hold everything: dispatch times and cutoffs, ranges by region, costs, pickup, local delivery, holiday closures, and what to do if something is late.

Product pages and the cart then carry a one-line summary with a link to it, so nobody has to hunt.

Date the page and review it each season. A delivery promise written two years ago, for a different packing routine, is how stores end up breaking promises they no longer remember making.

Promises to take down

Some wording should come off the site this week.

Fast shipping with no figure attached. Ships within twenty-four hours, when nobody packs at weekends. Delivery dates that depend entirely on a carrier you do not control.

Each one is a promise the store breaks on its worst week, and the customer remembers that week rather than the others.

The counter-case

Speed matters less for some stores.

Anything made to order, such as engraved gifts, custom furniture or printed items, is sold on its lead time. There, the honest lead time is the delivery promise, and it belongs on the product page.

A store selling something rare to customers far away will be judged on careful packing more than on speed. And a store without premises cannot offer pickup, though it can still show costs early and estimate honestly.

For most small stores, the answer to one-day delivery is not speed. It is an honest estimate, an early price and the option to collect.

This week

1. Look up actual delivery times from recent orders.
2. Write a range for each region you ship to.
3. Put the dispatch cutoff on product pages.
4. Show shipping costs before checkout begins.
5. Offer local pickup if you have premises.
6. Decide whether same-day local delivery is possible.
7. Remove any promise you cannot keep.

Step one is where the honesty starts. A range taken from your own recent orders is a promise you already keep; a range guessed at is one you will break.

Publishing a cutoff for a date that matters is covered in Valentine's orders and the shipping cutoff.

Frequently asked questions

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