One banner, many deadlines
Every November you put a banner on your shop: 'Order by 12 December for Christmas delivery.' It is roughly right for T-shirts to UK addresses. It is wrong for framed prints, which your partner makes in a different facility with a longer production time. It is wrong for Australia, where the deadline was a week earlier. It is wrong for embroidered hoodies, which slow down in December.
Customers who ordered after the real deadline for their item and country write in on 20 December asking where their gift is. Some leave reviews saying you promised Christmas delivery. Meanwhile, customers in the UK who could still have ordered on the 15th see the banner and go elsewhere.
Deadlines depend on the route, not the shop
Your partners do publish holiday deadlines, usually as a table on their website or a help article. The problem is turning those tables into one message for each customer.
- Deadlines differ by product type because production times differ.
- They differ by destination and shipping method.
- If you route orders between partners, the deadline depends on which partner gets the order.
- Partners sometimes revise deadlines as the season goes on.
- Marketplaces have their own ways of showing delivery estimates.
A single banner cannot say all of that, so it is wrong for someone.
What the wrong deadline costs
Customers who miss Christmas because of a date you displayed are among the unhappiest you will have. They ask for refunds, leave reviews and sometimes open cases on marketplaces. Customers who are put off by a date that was too early are lost sales at the busiest time of year. The support load in the last fortnight before Christmas is heavy enough without questions caused by unclear dates.
It also distorts your peak. Orders that could have come in during the final week never arrive.
The cut-off system we build
- Your partners' published holiday deadlines are entered into a table by product type, destination and shipping method, from their announcements, and updated when they change.
- Your routing rules are applied, so each product and destination has the deadline of the partner that would actually make it.
- Your own buffer is added, for example a couple of days for order handling, so the date you show is the date you are comfortable with.
- On your shop, product pages and the basket show the deadline for that product and the customer's country, and the basket shows the earliest deadline among its items.
- On marketplaces, processing times and holiday messaging are updated through their APIs where they allow it, or listed for you to change.
- As each deadline passes, messaging switches to 'arrives after Christmas' for that product and country, and express options are shown where your partner offers them.
| Example route | Deadline based on | What the customer sees |
|---|---|---|
| T-shirt to UK | UK partner's apparel deadline plus your buffer | Order by date for UK |
| Framed print to UK | Framing deadline plus your buffer | Earlier date on that product |
| Hoodie to Australia | International shipping deadline | Date for Australia |
| Mixed basket | Earliest deadline among items | One date for the whole order |
The deadlines come from your partners, and they are estimates on their side too. We make sure yours match theirs and include your buffer; we cannot guarantee delivery on their behalf.
December with honest dates
Customers see a date that applies to what they are buying and where it is going. A UK customer can still order a T-shirt in the final days, while a customer in Canada sees that their date has passed and chooses express. When a partner extends or brings forward a deadline, you change it once in the table and every page updates.
The 'will it arrive for Christmas' emails get fewer, and the ones that arrive can be answered with the date the customer was shown.
Signs your Christmas deadlines need this
- You show one Christmas date for every product and country.
- Customers abroad have missed Christmas after trusting your banner.
- Framed or embroidered items have arrived late.
- Your dates do not change when partners revise theirs.
- Christmas delivery questions fill your inbox in December.