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    Understanding dispatch delays and estimated delivery dates

    How SIM lead times, PDI times, and store transfers can affect the dispatch date and expected delivery date

    Dispatch Delays

    A dispatch delay indicates to a customer on your ecommerce site how long it will be before you will be in a position to send an item to them.  

    There are several reasons why a dispatch delay might appear:

    • You have the product in stock but it requires time to prepare before you are able to ship it.  This might be a PDI time for a bike, for example.  This delay is dictated by the Shipping Delays and Restrictions you set within Merchant Tools.


    • You have the product in stock at a different store, and the stock needs to be transferred between stores before it can be despatched.  This is dictated by the store lead time you have specified.


    • The product is in stock with a supplier, and you need to receive the item from the supplier before you can despatch it.  This is dictated by SIM lead time you have specified for that particular supplier.


    Dispatch delays are calculated as 24 hour blocks of time on working days, starting from the time the order is placed, and will be added together in instances where applicable.  For example, if an item requires 2 days preparation time but you first need to order the item in from the supplier and this has a lead time of 4 days, the overall dispatch delay will be calculated as 6 days, or 144 hours from the time of order.

    The platform considers working days to be Monday to Friday, so the 48 hour period of Saturday and Sunday will always be added onto any calculations when a lead time spans a weekend.

    Dispatch delay times only indicate when the goods will leave you, not when the customer will receive the item.


    Courier Collection Times

    Your ecommerce site will be configured to show the customer your shipping cut-off time. This indicates to the customer that an order placed after that time of day will not be shipped until the following day.

    Courier collection times refer to the time of day after which you can no longer dispatch via a particular courier.  For example, Courier A may collect parcels from you at 2pm each weekday so, after this time each day, you will not be able to send any shipments using a Courier A service until the following day.  However, Courier B may collect your shipments at 4pm, so if you have an order ready to dispatch after 2pm but before 4pm, that could be sent by Courier B on that day. 

    Courier collection times are specified against the service inside your Courier Integration Module management portal, ship.citruslime.com

    This being the case, the shipping service selected and the time of day at which the order is ready to be dispatched will affect the dispatch date.


    Estimated Delivery Dates

    Estimated delivery dates will indicate to the customer when they can anticipate arrival of their order.  There are several factors which influence this:

    • The day of the week on which the customer places their order;

    • A dispatch delay that might affect an item within their order;

    • The minimum / maximum days to deliver you have specified for the shipping service which the customer selects;
       
    • The days on which the shipment can be provided to the courier who will deliver the items to the customer;

    • The days of the week on which the courier will deliver shipments on the selected shipping service.  Unless specified, most shipping services are Monday to Friday.

    Let's look at some examples of how all of the above factors interact to provide the customer with an estimated delivery date.

    We'll use some common shipping services of Next Day Delivery (weekday only), 2-5 Days Shipping, and Saturday Delivery.  Unless specified, we've assumed the courier collection time is 15:00hrs and is the same for all services.

    1)  Item is in local stock and order is placed before the shipping cutoff

    If you hold the item in local stock and the order is placed before your shipping cutoff, no dispatch delay will display, as the understanding is that the item can be shipped on the date of order.

    How will this affect estimated delivery dates?

        Let's say the order is placed on Thursday:

        The same order placed on Friday:

        And now placed on Saturday:

    This works on the basis that you will not be processing the order or shipping the goods to the customer until the following working day of Monday.


    2)  Item is in local stock and order is placed after the shipping cutoff

    You will not be processing the order until the following working day, so the dispatch date will move on, though this is not considered a dispatch delay:

        Order placed on a Thursday:

        Order placed on a Friday:


    3)  Item is in stock but requires 2 days to prepare before shipping

    In this situation, there will be a 48 hour period on working days between the point the customer places the order and the date when the order will be dispatched.

        Order placed before the shipping cut-off of 15:00hrs on a Thursday:

    Since the order is placed before your shipping cut-off on Thursday, the 48 hour period passes before your shipping cut-off on Monday, indicating you can dispatch the order on Monday.

        Order placed after the shipping cut-off of 15:00hrs on a Thursday:

    As the order is placed after your shipping cut-off on Thursday, the 48 hour period only elapses after your shipping cut-off on Monday, meaning you will not dispatch the order until Tuesday.


    4)  Item is in supplier stock with a lead time of 3 days

    This follows the same principles as above, except in this example, 72 hours plus the weekend are required between the time of order to the time when the order can be dispatched.  This is to allow time for the goods to be received from the supplier.  

        Order placed before the shipping cut-off of 15:00hrs on a Thursday:

       Order placed after the shipping cut-off of 15:00hrs on a Thursday

    Order placed after the shipping cut-off of 15:00hrs on a Friday:


    5)  Item is in stock at another store, with a store lead time of 3 days

    Again, this follows a similar principle to the above example, where the dispatch delay is due to needing to transfer the goods from another store before they can be dispatched.  We are adding 72 hours from the point the order is placed, plus the 48 hours of the non-working, weekend days.

        Order placed before the shipping cut-off of 15:00hrs on a Thursday:

    Order placed after the shipping cut-off of 15:00hrs on a Thursday:



    6)  Item is in supplier stock with a lead time of 3 days, and requires 2 days to prepare

    Here, the item is not in local stock and so needs to be obtained from the supplier.  Once in store, the item then requires some preparation time before it can be dispatched.  So, we have a total of five days' lead time or 120 hours after the order is placed, before the item will be considered available to dispatch.

        Order placed before the shipping cut-off of 15:00hrs on a Thursday:

        Order placed after the shipping cut-off of 15:00hrs on a Thursday:


    7) Item is in local stock, different courier collection times

    Here we look at an example using a scenario which is slightly more complicated.  In this, we'll use different courier cutoff times to see how these affect the estimated delivery date.

    Let's assume the 'Next Day Delivery' service is provided by Courier A and the courier cutoff is 2pm.  

    The '2-5 Days Delivery' and 'Saturday Delivery' services are provided by Courier B, and their cutoff is 4pm. 

    How does this affect estimated delivery dates?

        Order placed on a Thursday before 2pm:

        Order placed on a Thursday after 2pm and before 4pm:

    In the above example, notice how the dispatch and delivery dates have changed for the next day delivery service.  As it is now after 2pm, it is no longer possible to send via that service on that day, so the order will be sent the following day.


    8)  Item is in supplier stock with a lead time of 3 days, requires 2 days to prepare and is ordered on a Saturday

    In our final example, we look at a combination of dispatch delays and the order being placed on a non-working day, and see how this affects the estimated delivery date.

    Since Saturday is a non-working day, the lead time starts on Monday at 00.00hrs.


    Within the examples above, we have illustrated how the logic works, and how various factors can have a bearing on the dispatch date and estimated delivery date.  There are obviously many individual scenarios which are not covered above, but the aim here is to show how the platform calculates what is displayed to the customer at the checkout.

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