Setting up manual delivery dates

Manual delivery dates calculate date ranges based on your fulfillment time and transit time, such as Wednesday, October 27 – Thursday, October 28. Delivery dates can help encourage your customers to complete purchases, resulting in more sales. Customers also don't need to search for estimated delivery dates in other pages of your online store.

Before you set up delivery dates, make sure to review Getting started with fulfillment time and delivery dates.

Requirements for setting up manual delivery dates

To display manual delivery dates in your online store, complete the following tasks:

• If you use legacy shipping settings, then update your shipping settings.
• Set up fulfillment time (instructions in this guide).
• Set up any of the following shipping rates:
  • Flat shipping rates with transit time.
  • Shipping label calculated rates
  • Negotiated carrier-calculated rates

Considerations for setting up manual delivery dates

Before you set up manual delivery dates, review the following considerations:

• Delivery dates are only available in certain countries depending on which shipping rate type you set up. To learn more, refer to Delivery dates availability.
• Delivery dates don't work with shipping rates provided by third-party apps.
• If you're using negotiated carrier-calculated shipping rates with Canada Post or UPS, then some mail services might not support delivery dates. To learn more, refer to Supported mail services.
• Delivery dates don't work with negotiated FedEx-calculated rates.
• If your checkout displays a mix of eligible and ineligible shipping rates, then delivery dates aren't displayed for your eligible rates.

Calculating delivery dates

To learn more about fulfillment time options, refer to Getting started with fulfillment time and delivery dates.

Your fulfillment time is added to the transit time of the carrier, and then the estimated delivery date range is displayed instead of an estimated transit time range in your online store.

For example, if you usually process your orders within 1 business day and shipping takes 2 to 3 days, then a specific delivery date range is displayed at checkout.

Review the following considerations on how the delivery dates are calculated:

• Weekends and statutory holidays are included in the estimated delivery dates calculation.
• Business days are considered Monday to Friday.
• The business day cutoff time is 12 pm in the local timezone of the shipping origin.

Delivery dates calculation example

Review the following example how fulfillment time and delivery dates are calculated:

• Order comes in Wednesday, January 22 after 12 pm.
• Store's fulfillment time is set to 2 business days.
• Estimated delivery is Thursday, January 30 - Friday, January 31.

Set up manual delivery dates

You can activate manual delivery dates to display date ranges at checkout.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery > Estimated delivery dates.
2. Click Estimated delivery dates, and then select Manual.
3. From the Fulfillment time drop-down menu, select one of the fulfillment time options.
4. Optional: If you select Custom, then enter a custom fulfillment time and select the unit, such as business days or weeks.
5. Click Save.

Turn off manual delivery dates

If you no longer want to display delivery dates, then you can turn them off.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery > Estimated delivery dates.
2. Click Estimated delivery dates, and then select Off.
3. Click Save.

Delivery dates availability

Delivery dates availability depends on the shipping rates type that you set up in your store. Review the following table to learn more:

Supported mail services

If you're using negotiated carrier-calculated shipping rates with Canada Post or UPS, then some mail services might not support delivery dates.

Review the following list of mail services that support delivery dates:

Add delivery dates to custom order confirmation notification

If you customized your order confirmation notification, then delivery dates might not be included in your order confirmation notification by default.

To add delivery dates to your custom order confirmation notification, you need to edit your template and make sure that it has a specific Liquid variable.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Notifications.

2. In the Orders section, click Order confirmation.

3. Make sure that your template has the following liquid variables after the {% if requires_shipping %} variable:

{% if consolidated_estimated_delivery_time %}
   {% if has_multiple_delivery_methods %}
      <h3 class="estimated_delivery__title">Estimated delivery</h3>
      <p>{{ consolidated_estimated_delivery_time }}</p>
   {% else %}
      <p>
         Estimated delivery <b>{{ consolidated_estimated_delivery_time }}</b>
      </p>
   {% endif %}
{% endif %}

4. Click Save.