Estimated delivery time

1. Overview

Estimated Delivery Time (EDT) is a feature designed to enhance the shopping experience by providing customers with an estimated timeframe for order delivery. With this feature, admins can establish delivery time parameters for all orders and all products. The feature also considers cut-off times for daily shipping operations, ensuring real-time updates based on the current time.

2. How to set up the minimum and maximum days for delivery?

To set up the minimum and maximum days for delivery for all orders and products, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open Theme Settings and expand the “Shipping and delivery” config group.
Step 2: Enter the minimum and maximum number of days required to ship all orders and products universally. 

Example: If the standard shipping time is 3 to 5 days, enter "3" as the minimum and "5" as the maximum. If a customer places an order on March 7, the Estimated Delivery Time would be displayed as "Between March 10 and March 12." This indicates that, based on the configured shipping parameters, the customer can expect their order to be delivered within that specified timeframe.

Result:

Note: If your store caters to multiple markets with distinct shipping times, use semicolons to differentiate the shipping days for each market.

Example: Suppose it takes 6 days to ship orders to the US and 3 days to the UK, enter "US:6;GB:3".

By applying these steps, you can establish specific shipping timeframes for all orders and products while accommodating variations for different markets through the use of semicolons.

3. Set up specific delivery times for individual products:

If you want to tailor the delivery time or messages for individual items, providing more specific information to customers during the shopping experience, follow these steps:

• In the Shopify admin, go to Settings => Custom data => Metafield Definitions => Products, add a definition.
• Create two metafields which have Namespace and key 'custom.delivery_date_min' and 'custom.delivery_date_max' with the type 'Text' if you want to set up specific delivery times.
• Or: Create a metafield with the namespace and key 'custom.delivery_date_message' to customize the delivery message for the product .
• For each product that requires a specific metafield, go to its admin settings.
• Enter the desired minimum and maximum delivery days or delivery messages in the created metafields. 
• If a product doesn't have values for these metafields, it will follow the general configuration set in the theme settings.

4. How to display the Estimated Delivery Time (EDT) on different pages?

a) Show EDT on Product Page:

• Navigate to the product page where you want to show the Estimated Delivery Date.
• Add the block named "Estimated Delivery Date” in the Product Information Section. To customize the message for each product in this block, you can create a metafield with the key 'custom.delivery_date_message' and type 'Rich text'. Moreover, the admin can customize the message and tooltip to provide additional information, also style the message according to your preferences using the styles section, where you can choose colors for the background, text of the content box, and colors for the tooltip. 

b) Show EDT on Cart Page/Minicart:

• Open Theme Settings and expand the “Shipping and delivery” config group.
• Find the config for "Show Estimated Delivery Time in Cart"
• Enable this option to display the EDT in the cart.
• Customize the message and tooltip to provide additional information. You can style the message according to your preferences using the Styles section.

These steps allow you to effectively communicate the estimated delivery time to customers at different stages of their shopping journey. 

5. How to set up a cut-off time for delivery?

Cut-off time refers to the specific point within a day when a business or shipping service stops accepting orders or processing shipments. It serves as a deadline for customers to place orders if they want their items to be shipped on the same day. Cut-off times are crucial for logistical planning and ensuring timely deliveries. For example, if a customer places an order after the cut-off time, the shipment will be processed on the next business day. Implementing a cut-off time helps businesses manage their workflow, maintain shipping schedules, and provide accurate Estimated Delivery Times to customers.

Please follow these steps to set up:

• Open Theme Settings and expand the “Shipping and delivery” config group.
• Locate the option for "Cut-off Time"
• Choose the time within the day (Hour & Minute) when shipping activities stop.

Example Scenario:

• If the current time is before the cut-off, the EDT displayed will be Min days_Max days.
• If the current time is equal to or after the cut-off, the EDT displayed will be Min days+1_Max days+1.

This configuration helps manage customer expectations based on the time of day, providing accurate and reliable estimated delivery information.