Is an estimated shipping date displayed?

More and more purchases are done online around time sensitive occasions like birthdays and weddings. Knowing when a product will arrive is often the mitigating factor between shopping online or off.

The high ticket item group who showed estimated shipping dates included retailers such as Schwan’s Home Service, Omaha Steaks, Peapod, 1-800-Contacts, and Blue Nile. The first three have obvious implications for long lead times, while 1-800-Contacts is often re-filling a product about to run out and Blue Nile – well, better not be late with that important anniversary present.

The 1.1% greater conversion rate achieved by the yes group is as expected. The challenge is managing expectations. If you claim you can get a product to someone by a certain date, failing to do so is quite damaging. Because so many retailers are not in command of the entire shipping process and outsource a large portion to carriers, risk increases. Perhaps retailers should take a clue from how Disney manages it’s Disneyland lines – tell someone the wait is 45 minutes and get them there in 30, they will be happy they ‘beat the estimate’.

Overall, 53% of Top 100 retailers choose to show estimated shipping dates.

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