Dispatch time penalty question:

Pretty_Pieces

Hello Forum Friendlies,

I am looking for a work around for the following situation:

We almost always have orders picked/packed/ready to ship within 2-3 days. BUT, about once per week, we do a cross-border run for shopping and are willing to post packages for our American customers through the USPS system. Conceivably, if your order just missed this week's run on say, Monday, and next week we aren't going across until later in the week, there could be 10-12 days until the system would see the "shipped" status. We would ALWAYS notify the customer directly if this was the case, and give them the option to cancel or use the Canada Post system instead. But, if the customer is happy to wait, is there some penalty to our store for "late shipping"? Is there a work-around?

Thanks,
Dawn
Pretty_Pieces

Lawrence

If a customer were to place an order with a stated despatch time of 1-3 days, and were later contacted to be informed that this would actually be much longer, this wouldn't really be an acceptable situation to occur on a regular basis.

Pretty_Pieces

To clarify: I live in Canada, near the border. The American buyer can CHOOSE to have the order delayed in leaving our shop, in order to have it dropped directly at the American postal office, rather than being sent International Mail through the Canadian post. This saves the customer shipping charges, and in many cases actually will get it to their address sooner. I'm sad to say that our Canada Post lags behind the US Postal system in both cost and efficiency.

If an American customer really wants to pay more, and wait longer to get their package, I can easily drop it off at Canada Post within the 1-3 day window.

It will be clearly stated on our splash page, and I will be setting up the shipping tables over the next week, so very informed choice.

My challenge is that to improve customer service, I won't have the order marked "shipped" within the dispatch window. If I change my dispatch time to 6-14 days, in order to be technically accurate, then I won't show up in the catalog.

This may be a non-issue, as long as any repercussions would only stem from customer complaints (Which will not happen). My understanding is that there is an automated check on the length of time between order receipt and marking items shipped.

Thanks for feedback,
Dawn
Pretty_Pieces

Pretty_Pieces

A further complication: I also offer local pick up, as well as delivery to local LEGO user's group monthly meetings. I have one order pending on another site that is for delivery to a meeting at the end of the month. Would this negatively impact my store rating, as "not shipped"?

Lawrence

Okay, I think if you create the shipping methods and mark them all as "local collection", that will stop the method being automatically defaulted to, or being shown in the catalog. The customer then would have the choice of manually choosing it at checkout. You would need to make the name of the shipping method incredibly clear that this shipping method will result in a significant delay to the order.

Just to clarify, the home page of a store can't be used to provide exceptions to information shown elsewhere. So for example having a dispatch time of 1-2 days but then stating on the home page that it will actually take longer.

Pretty_Pieces

Thank ypu for the clarification. That is helpful. My store is closed while I am out of town, and I will adjust the shipping methods accordingly before I re-open.