Dynamic Checkout: Nominated day delivery

Purpose: Once you've configured Dynamic Checkout, you can offer nominated day delivery to your customers on your checkout page. Follow the steps below to create your nominated day shipping methods and learn how Sendcloud helps you process them in time for the chosen delivery day. 

The Sendcloud subscription plans have been updated. If the subscriptions shown in the banner above don’t match your current subscription plan and you’d like to know more, please click here

Nominated day deliveries through Dynamic Checkout

Nominated day delivery lets your customers decide on which day they want to receive their orders. You can configure this checkout method for both domestic and international orders. 

How does it look?

Once you've added nominated day shipping methods, a date picker will appear on your checkout page. Your customer can then select a delivery day up to 14 days in the future. 

The default style of the date picker is a horizontal layout. If your webshop has a theme or layout which creates a checkout section less than 560px wide, the date picker automatically switches to a mobile friendly, vertical layout. You can see how it will appear in the preview section when you configure your Dynamic Checkout method.

Step 1: Set up nominated day delivery

First, make sure you've installed Dynamic Checkout for your integration and configured your delivery zones. Then proceed as follows: 

1. In Settings > Dynamic Checkout, next to your integration click Edit
2. Next, click on New delivery method next to the delivery zone where you want to offer nominated day delivery. 
   
   
3. Select Nominated day delivery from the list of delivery methods

Step 2: Select your shipping service

This section of the configuration menu allows you to select which carrier and options you want to offer on your checkout page.

By default, all of the carriers which you've enabled in your Sendcloud account will be shown here for you to choose from. Under column Transit time, the estimated time it takes for a parcel to arrive with the end-customer is noted. This is an indication only and is used to determine when customers will be able to select a delivery date at checkout. 

How to select your shipping service

1. Click Select next to the shipping service you want to offer. 
2. You can use the +add filter button to filter the list based on which additional shipping options are available*. 
3. Continue to Step 3

Step 3: Choose your shipping options

Once you’ve selected your shipping service, it’s time to add on the extra delivery options you want to offer. 

1. Make your choices based on the available options. For example, under Signature required you can select Yesor No depending on your preference.
2. The options you choose will then be used to calculate which shipping methods will be applied to your incoming orders. The applicable shipping methods will be listed under Shipping methods used to process orders.

Step 4: Configure shipping rates

Before your delivery method can be displayed, you need to add pricing. 

Click on  Use shipping rates to add pricing for your shipping method. Here can use default weight classes or define your own custom weight classes. If you choose the default weight classes, you will be using the weight classes predefined by the shipping service that you have activated. If you choose to customize your weight classes, you can create your own by clicking +New weight class. Select the option that suits you best.

Step 5: Holidays

In this section you can enter the days during the year in which you or the carrier won't be able to process or deliver parcels. For example, you can create a holiday for national holidays, workshops, training events, etc. You can select either a single day or a range of dates as a holiday, and you can mark a holiday as yearly recurring or as a one time event

For nominated day shipping methods, any holidays you add here will be used to calculate which dates are available as delivery day options to your customers at checkout. We calculate the delivery days based on:

• The parcel handover days and cut-off time you enter (step 5)
• Carrier working days
• Transit time of a shipping method
• Holiday days of a shipping method. 

Step 6: Parcel handover days, start and end times, cut-off times and override transit time

1. Parcel Handover Days:

This refers to the days of the week you, as the shop owner, are available to hand over parcels to the carrier. For example, if you don't work on Tuesdays, you won't be able to hand over parcels on Tuesdays. This directly impacts the earliest delivery date available to your customers.

• Example: If today is Tuesday, and you don't work on Tuesdays, the earliest you can hand over a parcel is Wednesday. Even if the carrier could theoretically deliver on Thursday, the customer won't see Thursday as an option because you can't get the parcel to the carrier until Wednesday.

2. Start and End Times (Visibility):

These times control when a specific delivery method is visible to the customer during checkout. They don't affect when you hand over the parcel or when the carrier delivers it. They simply determine the window of time during which the delivery option is displayed.

• Example: You set the start time for "Nominated Day Delivery" to 9:00 am and the end time to 2:00 pm. Customers browsing your site outside of these hours (e.g., at 8:00 am or 3:00 pm) won't see the "Nominated Day Delivery" option at all.

3. Cut-Off Time (End of Day):

The cut-off time represents the deadline for you to process and hand over a parcel to the carrier on that day. If an order comes in after the cut-off time, the parcel will be handed over to the carrier the next available handover day. This is crucial for determining the earliest possible delivery date.

• Example 1: Your cut-off time is 3:00 pm. A customer places an order at 2:50 pm. You can process it and hand it over to the carrier today. The earliest delivery date will be based on the carrier's transit time from today.
• Example 2: Your cut-off time is 3:00 pm. A customer places an order at 3:10 pm. You cannot hand it over today. The earliest you can hand it over is tomorrow (assuming you work tomorrow). The earliest delivery date will be based on the carrier's transit time from tomorrow.

4. Override Transit Time:

Carriers typically have standard transit times (the time it takes for a parcel to be delivered). The "override transit time" lets you manually adjust this. This is useful if you have a special agreement with the carrier for faster delivery, or if the standard transit time isn't accurate.

• Example: The standard transit time for DPD Classic is 48 hours (2 days). You have an agreement for next-day delivery. You can override the transit time to 24 hours. This will make next-day delivery the default for your customers.

Putting It All Together:

If today is Tuesday and you don’t work Tuesdays:

• An order placed at 3:10 PM won’t be processed today (past the cut-off).
• Since you don’t work Tuesdays, the earliest handover is Wednesday.
• If transit time is 24 hours, the earliest delivery date will be Thursday.

The system calculates available delivery dates based on your workdays, cut-off time, carrier transit times, and carrier working days. The 14-day delivery window only includes possible delivery dates based on these factors. For example, if the carrier doesn’t work on Sundays, Sunday will not appear as an available delivery date within the 14-day window.

Step 7. Checkout Rules

Checkout Rules help you customize your checkout process by automatically showing or hiding delivery methods based on specific conditions. This feature works with the Checkout API, giving you more control and flexibility to improve the customer experience.

With Checkout Rules, you can:

•  Display only relevant delivery options based on location, parcel size, or other factors.
• Improve the checkout process for a smoother customer journey.
• Ensure better accuracy in shipping availability and costs.

Configuring Checkout Rules
Navigate to Settings > Checkout Rules.
Select the Create new Rule and define your rule
Click Save Checkout Rule.

Find more details about Checkout Rules here.

Step 8. Add further details about the delivery method

Under the section Method details, give your shipping method an external and internal title, as well as a public description that will appear under the public title in your checkout.

Step 9: Save and publish

1. Click the Save delivery method button at the bottom of the page to save.
    
2. To publish your delivery method to your webshop, click the Publish button in the Dynamic Checkout configuration
   

Style the date picker 

You can change the appearance of the date picker to reflect your brand and website theme. Click here to see how. 

Troubleshooting & FAQ's

If you're having difficulties setting up your nominated day delivery methods, click here to read our troubleshooting article. 

Step 10: Process your nominated day deliveries in time 

Orders will be imported into Settings > Orders > incoming order overview in the Sendcloud panel as normal, however you will now be able to see an additional column in your overview called Parcel handover date. This column tells you when to process your orders so they reach your customer on time. 

• Orders which must be processed and handed over to the carrier today will appear with this icon:
  
  
• Orders which are overdue will appear as follows:
  
  

Filter by parcel handover date

You can also filter your orders using the +add filter button. For example, you can filter your view to show all the orders which must be processed today: 

Q: I don’t want to see the Parcel handover date because I’m not using Dynamic Checkout. What do I do?

A: You can filter your column view by clicking the column selector button ≡, located next to the search bar in the incoming order overview. For more information about filtering your orders, see the following article: How to use the +add filter function.