What Is A Custom Delivery Date Picker?
A delivery date picker is exactly what it sounds like - a widget or embedded piece of content that allows customers to specify the exact date that they would like their products to arrive.
In the past, customers have been able to manually calculate when their package will arrive by subtracting the number of days that their selected shipping method will take from the date they would like the product to show up on their doorstep. In previous implementations, our team built delivery date selection calendars on the cart page, as opposed to the checkout page. While this implementation does get the job done, both legacy solutions inherently came with added friction in the customer’s journey.
eCommerce merchants should strive to make purchasing as easy and as painless as possible. That’s exactly why our team built a custom delivery date selection calendar that is embedded directly into BigCommerce’s signature one-page checkout.
What products benefit from a delivery date selector?
We have identified four categories that our agency has seen benefit from delivery date selection implementations of this kind. Industry verticals that can benefit from this feature are not limited to those mentioned here. Keep an open mind as to if your customers could benefit from implementations like this as well.
Food and Beverages
Almost all food and beverage products will go bad if left in a non-climate controlled environment for a long enough period of time. On the other end of the spectrum, some food products are sure to spoil in a matter of hours if not stored and shipped properly.
First and foremost, frozen and dairy products require specific shipping methods and packaging. If you sell these perishable products online, you surely understand the time and packaging constraints that these products carry with them. Merchants of these products typically leverage universal two-day shipping, regardless of order size, to avoid spoiled goods.
Customers of these products often require a specific delivery date for cookouts, parties or other events. Furthermore, they may want all items to arrive the day before the get-together will be taking place. To add even more complexity, most consumers don’t have a spare freezer to load up with a party’s worth of steaks and ice cream.
By enabling consumers to select the exact day on which their goods will arrive and the method with which they will ship, merchants can empower customers to purchase far more products than otherwise possible.
Flowers, Seedlings, and Other Plants
A vertical which is not typically considered in eCommerce is the agriculture and floral sector. While many consumers choose to purchase these products in-store, there is a sizable market of consumers who wish to purchase rare or otherwise difficult to obtain plants.
From roses to organic seedlings, to venus fly traps - there are a seemingly endless number of applications in this category. Aside from shipping requirements to ensure a safe journey, some plants can only survive for a short period of time before water, nutrients, and sunlight are required.
By allowing customers to select which day their plants will arrive, they can plan to be home and be available to accept the package when delivered. This ensures that the plants are delivered to the customer in a healthy state - providing a wonderful end to the customer’s journey.
High-Value Goods
Those purchasing a ring, necklace, or other jewelry online are unlikely to leave their valuable package unattended on their doorstep for more than a few minutes. For customers without a locking mailbox, this presents a unique challenge.
Our delivery date selection tool allows these consumers to plan and anticipate the delivery of their high-value items. Items of this sort typically require a signature by the intended recipient before being dropped off. That being said, if the recipient is not expecting the package then they may not be home to receive it.
The buyer of a beautiful new 24k gold necklace may have the ability to work from home one day a week. By selecting that they would like their necklace delivered on a Friday, they can align their work schedule to ensure that they will be home to receive the item.
Gifts - Birthday, Anniversary, and Other
This final vertical of gifts is a rapidly growing space in eCommerce. There are many ways in which shoppers leverage online gift giving. No matter if they choose to purchase their friend or loved one an interest-based box, a gift card, or that specific clothing item they have been wanting all year - the same fact holds true.
When distance is a barrier to celebrating an occasion together, the person purchasing wants the item to arrive exactly at the right time. By allowing the gift-giver to select the date through our delivery date picker, both parties in the exchange feel that the online gifting experience was closer to being in-person than ever before.
How We Developed The Custom Delivery Date Picker
Advanced Shipping Manager Functionality
Advanced Shipping Manager is a native BigCommerce integration that allows merchants to define and implement a plethora of unique shipping rules and features for their eCommerce stores. Leveraging Advanced Shipping Manager’s API, our team of designers and developers built a custom shipping and delivery date calendar directly into BigCommerce’s one-page checkout
BigCommerce One-Page Checkout
Using a one-page checkout has proven to be one of the most effective ways of raising eCommerce conversion rates. A one-page checkout system refers to the fact that instead of a long multi-page checkout process, the entirety of the information required is all on one page.
By implementing this date selection functionality directly into BigCommerce’s one-page checkout, a frictionless customer experience is offered, which leads to higher conversion rates.
Groove Commerce Development
Our team of designers and developers took the functionality that both of these services offer and combined them into a beautiful calendar widget that can batch any brand’s style guide to provide a unified experience.
As with all of our website design and development projects, we create custom templates across all customer-facing pages. In cases where our client would like a delivery date selection calendar implemented, we must additionally modify BigCommerce’s one-page checkout.
Our designers and developers worked in tandem with the Advanced Shipping Manager team to create a visually appealing calendar directly within the shipping portion of the one-page checkout screen. This calendar pulls merchant-defined shipping rules from Advanced Shipping Manager and displays them in an intuitive manner that any website visitor will understand instantly.
As a customer finds the product or products they like, they add these products to their cart. Once ready to check out, they review their cart and ensure that the products listed are the ones they would like to purchase. This is exactly how all eCommerce sites have worked for the past decade.
Where things change however is once they click the “checkout” button on the cart screen. They are brought to a single package that requests all of the information that is needed to complete the transaction. One of the first things that this page will ask for from the customer is their desired delivery date. Instead of needing to type in a date in MM/DD/YYYY format, the user can simply click the date on a visually displayed calendar on the screen. This calendar will grey out any dates on which the product can not be delivered. It will also display the associated cost of shipping for each potential delivery date.
Conclusion:
Creating a calendar widget of this type has massive potential across a range of industries. If you are interested in implementing a similar delivery-date selection calendar directly to your eCommerce store’s checkout experience, reach out to our eCommerce team with 15+ years of experience below.
Do you still want more information? Check out our entire case study around how we built this exact functionality for every child’s favorite frozen amusement park treat, Dippin’ Dots!
