When Would You Like Those Products Delivered?When a gift can not be given in person, ordering online provides the next best alternative. If one considers the time it takes to drive to a store, pick out an item, drive it home, wrap it, and take it to the post office compared to shopping online, it's a real no-brainer. How can online merchants differentiate themselves from the competition when it comes to becoming a gift buyer's destination? There are the obvious things such as allowing for gift cards, gift wrapping, and multiple-ship-to locations. There is also one more way which many merchants aren't yet taking advantage of. Why not allow customers to specify the date on which they would like to have the product delivered? If presented the option, it seems that many customer's would like to have their gift delivered on the recipients birthday or as close to mother's day as possible.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle with offering a preferred delivery date is the complexity involved. It sounds simple enough at first glance, but the truth is that there are multiple factors that must be taken into account for this to happen smoothly on the merchant side. This is likely the reason why many shopping cart applications do not offer this capability as a standard feature.
First, the merchant must determine how much time they need prepare an order for shipment (expected shipping time). If an order is received at 10:00 tonight, can it be ready for pick up by the time the carrier drops by the next day? Does it depend upon the products that are ordered? What happens if the order is placed on Saturday? Will it go out on Monday?
Secondly, how long will the order be in transit? If it the carrier pick-up is at 4:00 today, how many days will go by until the product is delivered? These questions need to be answered before an ecommerce system can realistically determine the earliest possible delivery date. Fortunately, it is possible for an ecommerce system to determine the time in transit if it is integrated with the major shipping carriers.
When allowing customers to specify a preferred delivery date, merchants should be sure to specify a disclaimer so customers know that they will make every effort to have the order arrive on that date, but that it cannot be guaranteed. For instance, a carrier may get delayed and not be able meet the target transit time. It’s also important that a merchant stay very organized. If a merchant is taking a day or two off from shipping, he needs to adjust the settings in the ecommerce system so as not to setup unrealistic expectations for customers.
Gift oriented merchants that allow customers to specify a preferred delivery date and deliver on that date have more satisfied customers. Good ecommerce software will make the execution easy by providing tools that determine which orders need to be shipped for a given day.
