Preparation time & date range

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.

Example

• Store offers pickup on: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

• Prep time for regular orders: 3 days.

• Cut-off time for same-week pickup: 1 PM on Sunday.

• Pre-order products: Orders placed after 1 PM on Sunday will only see pickup slots available after 1 week.

Step-by-Step Setup:

1. Set Prep Time for Regular Orders (3 days):

   • For regular orders placed before 1 PM on Sunday, set the prep time to 3 days.

   • This means that if a customer places an order on Sunday before 1 PM, the available pickup slots will begin on Wednesday (3 days after Sunday).

2. Set Cut-off Time (1 PM on Sunday):

   • The cut-off time is when the system will prevent same-week pickup slots from being available for orders placed after this time.

   • In this case, set the cut-off time to 1 PM on Sunday. This means that any order placed after 1 PM on Sunday will not be eligible for pickup slots in the current week.

3. Set Delay Days for Pre-Order Products (10 days):

   • For pre-order products, you want to show pickup slots that are available after 1 week from the order date.

   • Set the delay days for pre-order products to 10 days. This means that if a customer places a pre-order after 1 PM on Sunday, they will only see available pickup slots starting from the following Wednesday, which is 10 days later

Enable preparation time

If you need time to prepare an order for pickup, 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.

Enable cut-off time

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.

Configure date range

If you want to limit how far into the future customers can choose for their pickup, you can set up a date range. This allows you to control how many days in advance customers can select a pickup slot.

Simply enter the number of days (the range) you want to allow for pickup.

For example, if you set the range to 7 days, customers will only be able to choose a pickup date within the next 7 days from the first available date.

By default, the date range for pickup 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 pickup for up to 1 year, you can enter 365 days as the date range.