After the middle of December online shoppers start to worry if their orders will arrive in time for December 25th. While the resulting drop in sales will be disappointing for some online merchants, it is an opportunity for others. The key is open communication with customers. If a customer visits your online store and feels comfortable that their package will arrive by the 24th, they are more likely to order from you than a competitor that mentions nothing about delivery dates. There are two important steps that merchants should take in making customers feel comfortable about ordering online in the middle of December:

1) Post final cut off orders dates on EVERY page of your online store. Don’t assume that every customer is going to enter your store through your storefront. Many will land on specific product pages. These cut off dates must be clearly labeled on every page. Also, bear in mind that cut off dates will vary depending upon shipping method. Ground orders typically take longer to get delivered and should have a different cut-off date than 2nd Day or Next Day orders. For Nexternal customers, the shopping cart header or footer would be a great place to post such a notice since the shopping cart is visible on every screen (Layout/Edit Cart Layout). Amazon.com does a good job of communicating order cut off dates on every page in the header of their site.

2) If your shopping cart supports an expected delivery data feature, use it. An expected delivery date feature displays the expected day that a package will be delivered next to the available shipping methods. It might look something like this:

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