Delivery Date & Time

Overview

ShipperHQ’s Delivery Date & Time feature supports showing:

  1. Delivery Dates (eg. Fri, July 10)
  2. Time in Transit (e.g. 3 days)
  3. A calendar for selecting the delivery date and time.
    (This feature is not currently available on Shopify. It is available to BigCommerce merchants on Enterprise Plans)

Carriers Supported

We support these time/date options on the following Carriers:

  1. UPS
  2. FedEx
  3. FedEx Ground Economy (formerly SmartPost)
  4. TForce Freight (formerly UPS Freight)
  5. Pitt Ohio
  6. USPS
  7. Canada Post
  8. Custom Table Rates
  9. In-Store Pickup (for Time Slots)
  10. Same-Day Delivery Carriers

Setup Feature

*Note: If you are on Magento 2.x.x and trying to set up Calendar , you will need to email support@shipperhq.com and ask for access to private satis repository for ShipperHQ’s module-calendar and module-pickup packages. 

In order to enable these features:

1. Under the Advanced Features tab in the left navigation, enable Delivery Date & Time from the menu screen (screenshot below)

2. Once enabled, you will see some feature settings if you click on the gear icon on that feature.

To configure your Date & Time settings, Go back to Carriers and see “Live Rate Carriers” section below.

Feature Settings

If you click on the Delivery Date & Time feature itself, you will see 3 settings options:

  1. Could not determine Delivery Date message: This is where you can set the message that should appear if a Delivery Date is not determined.
  2. Lead Time Overrides Cutoff Time: If set to yes, cutoff time is ignored if a Lead Time has been applied
  3. Calendar Display Option: How the Calendar should display in Checkout (inline, or Popup). Only supported on Magento 1/2 and Zoey Platforms.

Origins

If you are using any form of time-in-transit capabilities (delivery date/time or a calendar) then it is necessary to set up the date-based information.

ShipperHQ asks for details on:

  • Blackout production days/dates – e.g. when is your factory not producing the goods. This could be set to 0 if you can ship items straight away. A great example is a picture framer who needs 5 days to produce the picture from time of order
  • Blackout shipment days/dates – when can the goods be picked up for delivery
  • Cut-off time – Whats the cut-off time for this origin to be able to ship goods. Only relevant if shipping on the same day

Carrier Configuration

1. Under the carrier look for the Date & Time tab.

2. Click on the Delivery Date Information dropdown to choose between displaying shipping rates only, Delivery Date, Time in Transit, or Show Calendar

NOTE: “Show Calendar” is currently not available for Shopify and only available for BigCommerce with Calendar & Pickup enabled

3 a. When Delivery Date or Time in Transit are selected, you can update settings around Lead Times, Cut-off Times, or Blackout Dates.

3 b. When Show Calendar is selected, you may determine the start and end dates of the calendar you’d like to display for delivery day. You may also define the total number of days available for the customer to select from. By default, ShipperHQ will use the lead time of the origin a product is shipping from as the lead time for this carrier, but if you choose to override that as it pertains to this specific carrier, you can do so here. Lastly, you can edit the blackout delivery dates of this carrier if necessary.

4. Save the Carrier

Now your Live Rate Carrier will show Delivery Date or Time in Transit with the Shipping Rates and methods.

Max Number of Days to Show

When you select “Show Calendar” the field “Max Number Of Days to Show” will be displayed. The numerical value on that field will reflect on the checkout on the calendar, indicating how many days the customer will be able to select after the initial dispatch date. So for a value of 14 days, the number of days that will be allowed to be selected is up to 14 days from tomorrow, current dispatch date, but no days after that are available.

Show Cheapest Delivery Date

Note that when you select “Show Calendar” per the screenshot above, you get a tick box that states “Show Cheapest Delivery Date.” What this functionality intended to do is to default to the dates that return the cheapest method upon landing on the checkout initially prior to selecting any dates.

For instance, let’s say that tomorrow (1st of the month) is an available delivery date, and expedited methods like Standard Overnight and Next day Air are returning, but there is no ground method (the least expensive method) for tomorrow. When that option is ticked, the calendar is going to default on the 4th of the month as that day is returning the “Ground” method, as it’s one of the least expensive methods.

This functionality will look for multiple days and is going to return the cheapest methods. Of course, it will take into account max time in transit, blackout delivery dates/days prior to auto-selecting that day on the calendar.

Table Rate Carriers

On Table Rate Carriers, you can set Lead Times against your custom shipping methods and set additional Calendar Settings.

In your Table Rate Carrier, under the Basic tab, go to the Shipping Methods section. Edit your methods to add Lead Times. The lead times you set here will affect the Delivery Date shown against the method.

After lead times are set against the methods, Save the Carrier. You should now be set to show Delivery Date & Time against shipping methods.

For more information on customizing the text displayed for your delivery dates and time in transit, read about our explanatory text on the checkout.

Additional Info on Functionality

Read more about setting up Delivery Date & Time in ShipperHQ with the articles below:

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