According to a UPS report, shoppers abandon their shopping carts between 12 and 28 percent of the time if there are no anticipated delivery days before checkout. Therefore, this is a feature that may help your store’s bottom line by preventing cart abandonment.
Aside from educating your clients in general, highlighting WooCommerce shipping days is particularly critical over the holidays, such as announcing the final day for Christmas delivery during the holiday shopping season.
The fact of the matter is that giving your customers the option of choosing their own delivery date will enhance their experience. In this post, we’ll go over the benefits of doing so, as well as how to accomplish it on your WooCommerce store.
The Benefits of Allowing Customers to Pick Their Own Delivery Date
Allowing customers to choose a delivery date during the checkout process has a number of benefits for your company, including:
Enhancing Customer Service
Most customers prefer online shopping since it removes the need to wait in lines or visit many stores.
Your consumers may cancel the order and depart unsatisfied, since you have little to no control over delivery timings. As a consequence, your clients will have a terrible experience, and your brand’s reputation will suffer.
Giving customers the ability to select their delivery date is a clever way to get around this problem. They can then pick a day that works for both their personal and professional agendas.
Reduces your operating expenses
Each delivery effort adds to the total cost of your project. You must cover the cost of the delivery driver’s time as well as the distance traveled.
If your customers can’t pick a delivery time and day, you risk having to travel out several times to deliver a shipment. Multiple tries might quickly add up and increase your expenses. If you know your client will be home when the delivery is made, however, you will only have to make that delivery once, saving you money.
There’s a Lower Chance of Repeat Deliveries
If a consumer makes a purchase, you are responsible for delivering their items. Without a specified time, you have no way of knowing whether your customer or someone they trust will be home.
Allowing your customers to choose the exact time and day of delivery that is most convenient for them.
Establish brand trustworthiness
Another benefit of having a variety of delivery alternatives is that it helps your customers trust your brand. Consumers who trust you and your brand are more likely to become repeat customers and return to your business for future transactions.
Customers may organize gift delivery
Because few online retailers provide flexible delivery options, online shoppers must plan ahead to guarantee that their presents arrive on time.
When you make it straightforward for customers to select the exact time and day of delivery, they can be certain that their gift will arrive on time and without causing stress or spoiling the surprise.
Elements that go into determining a WooCommerce order delivery date
Think about the delivery options you have
You can control everything from checkout to handing over the goods to your shipping service when it comes to presenting a WooCommerce delivery date. It is then their responsibility to deliver within the stipulated time range.
Depending on the number of deliveries, selecting the ideal shipping method will always be a balancing act between delivery time and price.
Provide a disclaimer for custom/handmade products that require preparation
There may be a delay between when an order is placed and when it is delivered if you sell handcrafted or personalized WooCommerce items.
If this is the case, when you show the estimated delivery date format on the front-end of your WooCommerce product page and checkout page, you should explicitly express this lag time to clients.
Make note of the holidays
It’s crucial to consider significant holidays when determining an expected WooCommerce order delivery date time window.
Not only might holidays influence your courier’s delivery schedules, but they’re also often your busiest time of year, which means it can take you longer to get orders out. You may also provide multiple time slots.
Get to know the plugin
Using the ELEX WooCommerce Choose Your Delivery Date Plugin in your WooCommerce store allows your customers to select a delivery date that takes into consideration your business days, holidays, and the minimum number of days it takes to deliver items.
The following are some of the plugin’s most notable features:
- Customers have the option of deciding their chosen delivery date.
- Allow for the mitigation of specific days as a delivery date.
- Keep your consumers up to date on your planned vacations.
- Include customer-friendly notes.
Access the plugin
Installing and activating the plugin is the first step. To do so, simply download the zip file. Install the plugin by going to your WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin and clicking Install Now.
Click Activate Plugin when the plugin has been installed.
Go to Dashboard > WooCommerce > Settings > ELEX Choose Delivery Date to use the plugin now.
It’s crucial to know what functionalities are accessible on the plugin’s dashboard before configuring the settings. Let’s have a look at some features.
- Checkout Field Label: To tell your customers about the delivery date selection option, you may add custom text to show on the checkout page.
- Set Minimum Delivery Days: To set a minimum number of days for delivering the product, check this box. When you enable this option, a new box appears where you can enter the minimum number of days you want customers to wait.
- Minimum days you take to deliver products: Enter the number of days to be banned starting the next day after the order is finished.
- Select Your Weekly Holidays: The days of each week will be available as checkboxes. You may use this row to verify the days you won’t be delivering anything. You can plan special holidays up to a week in advance. As a consequence, once the holiday has passed, remember to uncheck special holidays from the dashboard.
- Note to Customers: Include a personalized remark for customers with additional holiday information.
Now that you know what each field is for, let’s get started. You may fill in the blanks with pertinent information and modify the plugin to your liking.
For example, we’ll set the minimum number of days for shipment to two and choose Monday and Tuesday as holidays. We’ll also add a “Select Your Delivery Date” label to the checkout form and a “Thank you for Ordering” letter to the customer.
A screenshot of the frontend view with the plugin active is shown below.
Conclusion
Allowing customers to pick a convenient day and time for delivery has a number of benefits for your company. You can improve customer service, brand image, and income with the ELEX WooCommerce Choose Your Delivery Date plugin.
