Preparation time & Date range
Last updated
Last updated
Store owners now have the flexibility to control which pickup or delivery days are displayed to customers on their store site by configuring preparation and cut-off times.
Preparation time is the time store owners need to get a product or service ready for delivery. It decides which delivery slots customers can see first—only slots that allow enough preparation time will be shown.
Cut-off time refers to the latest time by which an order must be placed in order to be eligible for same-day or next-day delivery. Orders placed after the cut-off time will typically be scheduled for delivery on a later date.
If a store offers delivery on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, with a prep time of 3 days, they can set it up so that customers who place an order before 1 PM on Sunday can see the upcoming delivery slots for regular orders. However, for pre-order products, customers placing orders after 1 PM will only see delivery slots available after 1 week.
Here’s how to set it up:
Set the prep time before the cut-off time on Sunday to 3 days.
Set the cut-off time on Sunday to 1 PM and delay days to 10 days.
If you need time to prepare an order for delivery, you can enable preparation time by selecting Enable. Once enabled, it will appear as shown below:
If you need the same preparation time for every day, select "Same preparation time each day."
If your preparation time varies by day, select "Different preparation time each day."
Preparation time is measured in days, hours, and minutes.
If you set preparation time to 0 days, it means you offer same-day delivery or pickup. For example, if you allow delivery or pickup on Monday and customers visit your site on Monday, they can place an order and receive it on the same day.
If you set preparation time to 24 hours, the countdown starts from when the customer adds a product to their cart. Customers will only see the nearest delivery or pickup slots that meet the 24-hour preparation requirement.
If you need to set a cut-off time for orders on specific days of the week, simply tick the "Add a cut-off time" option.
Delay time: After the cut-off time, the delay time is the period that the store wants buyers to wait before seeing the available pickup or delivery slots that meet the store's set delay time requirements.
By default, the cut-off time is set to 6:00 PM, and the delay time is set to 2 days. This means that if a customer places an order after 6:00 PM, the earliest available delivery slot they will see will be 2 days later, to account for the delay time. For example, if an order is placed at 7:00 PM, the customer will only be able to choose a delivery date that's at least 2 days in the future.
If you want to limit how far into the future customers can choose for their local delivery, you can set up a date range. This allows you to control how many days in advance customers can select a delivery slot.
Simply enter the number of days (the range) you want to allow for delivery.
For example, if you set the range to 7 days, customers will only be able to choose a delivery date within the next 7 days from the first available date.
By default, the date range for delivery is calculated in days, months, or weeks, starting from the moment the customer visits the product page and adds an item to their cart.
If you want to offer regular local delivery for up to 1 year, you can enter 365 days as the date range.
