Mother's Day Orders and the Cut-Off Date

Nine days out

Mother's Day is Sunday, May 14. For an online store, the date that matters comes earlier: the last day someone can order and still have the gift arrive, or be ready, in time.

Customers do not know that date. They know Sunday, and many assume ordering by Thursday or Friday will do.

If the cut-off appears only in a social media post or a home page banner, most will never see it. They arrive on a product page from a search or an email, and the product page says nothing.

The result is the worst kind of order: a gift that arrives late, and a customer who feels misled.

Count back from Sunday

Work out a date for each way an order can reach someone, counting back from Sunday.

For shipping, allow the days it takes to pack and hand over an order, the transit time quoted for each service and destination, and the fact that weekend deliveries are limited.

Then add a day of margin. Transit times are estimates, and the week before a gift holiday is busier than usual.

Local delivery and pickup have their own limits: how many orders staff can prepare, and how many deliveries fit into a day.

A cut-off for each method

• Distant and remote addresses, the earliest date of all.
• Standard shipping nearer home, a few days later.
• Express shipping, later again, at a higher price.
• Local delivery, limited by your own drivers and routes.
• In-store pickup, limited by what staff can prepare.
• Gift cards sent by email, with no cut-off at all.

The last is the one stores forget to offer. A gift card delivered by email can be bought on Sunday morning, which rescues the customer who missed every other date.

Where the dates must appear

On every gift product page, near the price and the add to cart button, as one plain line, for example: order by Monday, May 8 for standard delivery within BC.

In the cart and at checkout, beside each shipping option, so a customer choosing standard shipping on Thursday sees that it arrives after Sunday.

On the home page and in any Mother's Day email, as a short list of dates by method.

And in the order confirmation email, with the expected delivery or pickup time for that order. That is the message customers keep.

Let the checkout enforce it

Text alone relies on people reading it. Where the store's platform allows, change the options themselves as each date passes.

After the standard shipping cut-off, label that option as arriving after Mother's Day, or hide it and leave express and pickup.

Cap pickup orders at the number staff can prepare, and show the product as sold out for pickup once the cap is reached.

Schedule the changes if the platform can, or put them in a named person's calendar with times. A banner promising Friday delivery that is still up on Saturday does more harm than no banner.

A worked example

A creperie in a busy neighbourhood sells through a small store on its website: gift cards mailed in a card, gift cards sent by email, and for Mother's Day, a brunch box for pickup that weekend.

Last year the only mention of deadlines was a post on the creperie's Facebook page. Mailed gift cards were ordered on the Friday by people expecting them by Sunday.

Brunch box orders kept arriving after the kitchen had ordered its ingredients, and on the Saturday staff spent the morning phoning customers to apologise, offering refunds or an emailed gift card instead.

This year each product page carries its own date: mailed cards by Monday, May 8, and brunch boxes by noon on Wednesday, May 10, capped at the number the kitchen can make. The checkout repeats both.

Once a date passes, the product says it is closed for Mother's Day and points to the emailed gift card, which stays on sale until Sunday.

Orders placed after the cut-off

Some will come anyway: a customer who did not read, or one who is happy for the gift to be late.

Decide now whether to accept them. Many stores do, with a clear line at checkout and in the confirmation saying the order will arrive after Mother's Day.

If an order slips through that cannot arrive in time, contact the customer the same day and offer the choices: ship anyway, switch to an emailed gift card, or a refund.

Never ship late without a word. The customer finds out on Sunday, from their mother.

Answering the question in advance

In the week before, the most common question by phone and email is whether an order will arrive in time.

A short section listing the dates by method, with the time zone, answers most of them. Link to it from the product pages and the contact page.

Give whoever answers the phone and the inbox the same list and a ready reply, so every customer hears the same answer.

And make sure the dates allow for your own hours. An order placed after closing on the cut-off day is, in practice, an order for the next day.

After Sunday

Take the banners and the dates down on Monday. Leftover Mother's Day messages make a store look unattended for weeks.

Then write down what happened: which dates held, which orders were late, what customers asked. The same plan serves every gift date that follows.

The counter-case

A store whose products are rarely bought as gifts may see little Mother's Day demand. A line on the relevant products is enough there.

A store that delivers only locally, with its own drivers, can set later dates, and should still show them.

And a shop with a small online range may do better promoting pickup and emailed gift cards alone, rather than promising shipping times it cannot control.

Wherever an order depends on a date, the date belongs on the product page and at checkout.

Today

1. Count back from Sunday for each delivery method.
2. Add a day of margin to each.
3. Put the dates on every gift product page.
4. Label the shipping options at checkout.
5. Schedule each change for when its date passes.
6. Offer emailed gift cards after the cut-offs.
7. Prepare a reply for late orders.

Step four catches the customer who read nothing else. The checkout is the last screen before payment, and the shipping option they pick is where a wrong assumption either gets corrected or becomes a late gift.

Showing realistic delivery times to customers further afield is covered in selling to American customers from a Canadian store.

Frequently asked questions

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