Experts predict that 2021 will be another record-breaking holiday selling season. According to Deloitte, holiday sales are projected to total $1.3 trillion from November to January, with eCommerce sales, in particular, growing 11% to 15% from last year. Amongst higher than usual sales volumes, there is still the nitty-gritty work of order fulfillment and delivery.
We’re still seeing supply chain disruptions and shipping delays this season. Shipping strikes, labor shortages, limited shipping containers, freight and port congestion, and higher-order volumes have caused shipping carriers to operate well above capacity, causing major delays when it comes to shipping products to customers. It’s crucial to do some upfront work to mitigate these delays, so you can get products to customers ahead of the holidays and keep them happy.
Ideally, you would have mapped out your holiday shipping strategy weeks ago, but if not, here are a few simple last-minute tips to ensure your orders get into your eager customers’ hands by the holidays:
1. Meet shipping carrier deadlines to ensure packages arrive before December 25
Whether you have record-breaking sales or you sell on a smaller scale, you’ll still need to get your products out to your customers in the expected timeframe. As you may have experienced, shipping carrier deadlines have been impacted due to the spike in eCommerce orders and a number of other factors. While you won’t be able to predict shipping carrier delays, you can do your best to meet carrier deadlines and stay informed of any updates they make available.
Every holiday season, carriers update their shipping deadlines to ensure delivery prior to specific holidays and dates.
| Shipping carrier | Service | Cut-off date |
|---|---|---|
| UPS | UPS Ground | See ups.com/ctc for details |
| 3 Day Select | Dec. 21, 2021 | |
| 2nd Day Air | Dec. 22, 2021 | |
| Next Day Air | Dec. 23, 2021 | |
| DHL Express | DHL Express | See dct.dhl.com for details |
| USPS | First-Class Mail | Dec. 17, 2021 |
| First Class Package Service | Dec. 17, 2021 | |
| Priority Mail | Dec. 18, 2021 | |
| Priority Mail Express | Dec. 23, 2021 | |
| Mail services to international and military destinations | Review USPS’s holiday shipping deadlines | |
| Canada Post | Domestic deliveries | Review Canada Post’s delivery standards tool |
| Tracked Packets and Small Packets to the US | Dec. 9, 2021 | |
| Expedited Parcel to the US | Dec. 13, 2021 | |
| Xpresspost to the US | Dec. 16, 2021 | |
| International destinations | Review Canada Post’s holiday sending guide | |
| Sendle | ||
| Domestic long-haul deliveries | Dec. 3, 2021 | |
| Domestic short-haul deliveries | Dec. 10, 2021 | |
| Domestic same-city deliveries | Dec. 13, 2021 | |
| International to Canada | Dec. 6, 2021 | |
| International to the US | Dec. 6, 2021 | |
| International to New Zealand | Dec. 10, 2021 | |
| International to New Zealand | Dec. 10, 2021 |
Learn more about ship-by dates for the 2021 holiday season.
NOTE: If you’ve missed a deadline, be candid with your customers and communicate any potential delays with them. Learn more tips for shipping products over the holiday season.
2. Streamline your fulfillment and shipping process
Once you’ve reviewed the shipping deadlines for each carrier, it’s time to prioritize your order fulfillment accordingly. Organizing and prioritizing your orders can help you get products to your customers faster, without missing any deadlines. If you’re a Shopify customer, you can add tags to each order indicating the shipping provider and deadline. From there, you can use the orders list to filter by the deadline, then select multiple orders and fulfill. Another way to prioritize unfulfilled orders is to organize by delivery method (local, standard, expedited) or by order date (oldest to newest).
To make this process even faster, consider using bulk fulfillment workflows in Shopify. For example, once you’ve decided on the orders you want to fulfill, you can buy and create Shopify shipping labels from one view, if you are in the US, Canada, Australia, or the UK. You can also print packing slips for the orders you wish to fulfill that day, all at once.
You might want to organize your fulfillment area, so your products, packing slips, packaging, and shipping labels are in an assembly line, ready to be packaged and shipped. Once you are ready to ship, get your shipping provider to pick up the packages, so you don’t waste time dropping them off at the post office yourself.
3. Extend your holiday selling season with local delivery and pickup
We all know someone who waits until the last minute to start their holiday shopping. And we also all know someone who finishes their shopping weeks in advance but keeps buying “little things” right up until December 24. Being dependent on shipping carrier deadlines, it’s hard to keep selling to those last-minute shoppers and get their packages to them in time for the holiday. Of course, you could ship using expedited shipping methods, but that can also be costly.
Local delivery and local or curbside pickup are great ways to satisfy local shoppers looking for last-minute holiday gifts. These alternate delivery methods started as a lifeline to help merchants early in the pandemic but have proven to be critical for business owners looking to connect with their nearby customers, increase sales, and provide a great customer experience. It also lets customers support their local businesses while staying safe and saving on shipping costs. A win-win for all involved!
Both local delivery and pickup are easy to set up in your Shopify store. Once you’re set-up, consider the logistics of how you’ll make your products available for pickup and delivery. Whatever strategy you choose, make sure to communicate it with your loyal customers: add banners to your website, put signs in your storefront windows, and utilize email and social media.
4. Accommodate order changes
It’s not uncommon for shoppers to make mistakes while shopping online. Sometimes they click Pay too quickly, only realizing after the fact that they forgot to add a discount code, picked the wrong product size or color, or missed an item in their cart. As a merchant, it can be helpful to use order notifications so your shoppers have a record of what they purchased after checking out. They can review their order and double-check if any mistakes were made. Order notifications also automatically keep your customers in the loop on the status of their order throughout the entire fulfillment process, including orders received, out for delivery, and delivered.
If a mistake was made, you can create a better and more memorable experience by fixing their order for them before fulfilling it, which ultimately reduces the likelihood of a return later on. Use order editing in Shopify to add or remove order items, adjust quantities of existing items, and apply discounts. Once the change has been made, Shopify makes it easy to charge or refund your customer and automatically notifies them once the change has been made.
5. Prepare for an influx of returns
Typically, National Returns Day—the day buyers return the most orders back to sellers—falls on January 2, but given the extended holiday shopping season, we expect a higher volume of returns in December, January, and February. The average rate of returns over the holidays is typically 30%, which is a 10% increase compared to the rest of the year. Returns have become a critical part of the buying process, and most shoppers won’t purchase a gift unless there is the option to return it. Apparel is believed to be the industry most likely to experience a high return rate.
To prepare for return season, get familiar with managing returns in Shopify. Once your customer has made a request to return the product as per your return policy, you can follow a simple step-by-step workflow to process the return right from the order details page. With returns in Shopify, you can keep track of return reasons, create and automatically email return shipping labels to your customer, track shipping, issue a refund, and restock your inventory.
If you’ve been leveraging local delivery or BOPIS, consider using these delivery methods to manage your returns. You can avoid additional return shipping charges by locally picking up returned products or incentivizing your customers to return the product in-store or curbside. You can still issue your customer a refund in Shopify, once the product has been received.
Haven’t set up a return policy yet? Head over to our guide.
Wrapping up
We at ShopShipShake have been working with businesses like yours with fulfilling experiences. We offer one-stop services, including an efficient supply chain, over 10 thousand of China’s suppliers, and more.
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