With customer experience taking center stage for any E-commerce, all the businesses are putting in the effort to offer the best services. One such aspect is the reliability and predictability of order management. As businesses add value-added services, customers expect to receive a tracking number, estimated delivery date, and delivery notifications. The entire process ensures the removal of the ‘risk’ of purchasing goods online. It also builds trust with the customers.
E-commerce businesses use a plethora of software and extensions to deliver customer satisfaction, and one of the tools they are using is Magento 2 estimated delivery date. It is now becoming one of the most sought-after extensions in work for E-commerce stores as it makes the management feasible.
Why Do You Need Estimated Delivery Date Functionality?
When e-commerce stores provide the order tracking number, it maintains credibility allowing customers to track their order and have an approximate understanding of when to expect the package. While simple order tracking offers several benefits, estimated delivery date functionality has a lot more advantages. Here are the three benefits on why online stores need estimated delivery date functionality for their products and orders.
1. Cost Reduction
Any company that sells their products online has experienced that dealing with customer inquiries or complaints about the order delivery date is quite a headache. When inquiries and complaints pile up, you will have no option but to either hire someone to resolve the issues or outsource customer service. The other option you have is to use a bot to handle individual complaints. You have to spend money for all of these, or else your company review will suffer, and all your effort in the business will go down the drain.
If you want to cut this problem at the bud, you can have an expected shipping and delivery dates functionality with E-Commerce. This will lead to you having significantly fewer inquiries about the movement of the order. Also, with estimated delivery date functionality implemented within Magento 2 store, the tracking information will automatically get updated to your customer once the order is shipped.
In case there is an issue, you can locate the order and resolve it. The entire system puts less burden on your customer care team while enhancing the service quality and saving both time and money for your company.
2. Increase Customer Loyalty
It has been estimated that 97% of online shoppers want to track their orders. They are not satisfied only when the details of the booking are given. Instead, they want to track every shipping detail. An option to see an estimated delivery date on a product page for the exact product or during checkout for the whole order is a huge advantage for them.
When you can provide this and some features like leave it with the neighbor or scheduling the delivery, your customers won’t be going to other major online retailers. They will instead not only be your loyal customers, but they will also recommend you to others, thus increasing your customer base and business.
The order tracking option and the estimated delivery date functionality also give you the benefit of offering your customers a more satisfying answer to queries about their package. It is possible that with so much movement of the package once it leaves the warehouse, it can take time and surpass the estimated delivery date. So, with the tracking option, instead of apologizing for not knowing where it is, you can give the correct answer and keep them in the loop.
3. Control Over Fulfilment
Having a satisfied customer means enjoying repeat customers, and that’s where the real money for a company comes from. This is only possible when you have the right E-Commerce fulfillment strategy for your E-Commerce business, which includes tracking the package.
In E-Commerce, the job starts once the package has left the warehouse and doesn’t finish until it reaches the customer. With tools like Estimated Delivery Date Magento 2 Module, you give the control to the customers to select the delivery date and that is the main factor that makes customers retain for a long period. This further leads to fewer issues in terms of delivery and the customer can choose the preferred time and date for delivery as per their convenience.
The process helps reduce unhappy customers, decreasing the churning rate and increasing the value for the customers and your overall business.
With these benefits, a successful implementation will offer an estimated delivery date for the product, but it is essential to know how to use the feature. Either you can do it yourself or hire Magento developers who will do it for you.
How to Use Estimated Delivery Dates?
When it comes to calculating the estimated delivery time, six dates need to be taken care of to ensure proper fulfillment of the package. These are:
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Order Date
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Shipping Date
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Estimated Shipping Date
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Estimated Delivery Date
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Delivery Date
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Return Date
Based on all these six significant dates, primarily the shipping date, the estimated delivery date is made. You calculate the estimated delivery date first on the estimated shipping time, considering the order date and the time the order will be picked, packed, and shipped. Then, you have to add this entire calculation to the delivery date process and the transit time, and other various factors.
If your customer has chosen the express delivery for the package, your calculation must be different from those who take the standard delivery option. Also, if the route is longer, then it will take more time.
If the shipping is done abroad, you have to consider national and, at times, state holidays when shipping is unavailable. This will delay the process. So, there are quite a few factors that you have to consider when estimating the delivery date.
Ready solutions for Magento 2 that provide estimated delivery date functionality allow automating the process. They usually provide a calendar where you can pre-define all the holidays and other factors. In addition, they help you to auto-calculate the shipping and delivery date of the product.
The Best Estimated Delivery Date Extensions for Magento 2
While the above section explains how the Magento 2 estimated delivery extension works, here are three different companies and developers offering the extension for your eCommerce stores.
Magento 2 Estimated Delivery Date by MageAnts
Magento 2 Estimated Delivery Date by MageAnts helps store owners to showcase the estimated delivery date on the product details page. With this effective tool, store owners can enhance user experience and streamline product delivery.
Key Features:
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User-friendly interface to manage delivery date and time
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Display delivery date on product and category page
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Store admin can restrict days off
Magento 2 Estimated Delivery Date by Setubridge
Enhance customer’s shopping experience and increase brand trust by showcasing transparent information about the estimated delivery date on the product page with Setubridge’s Magento 2 Estimated Delivery Date plugin.
Key Features:
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Easy to show widget informing estimated delivery date at the product detail page
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The global message for all products
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5+ ready-made templates available for the delivery message widget
Magento 2 Estimated Delivery Date by Blackbird
With Blackbird’s Magento 2 Estimated Delivery Date extension, store owners can provide reliable information to their customers about the estimated delivery date of their orders. Compatible with Magento 2.2, Magento 2.3, and Magento 2.4 versions.
Key Features:
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Enhance customers’ shopping experience
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Easy to show estimated delivery date on strategic pages of your online store
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Easy for admin to check estimated delivery and shipping date
Apart from these, there is a range of other immensely beneficial features for the E-Commerce owner.
How do these extensions work?
As an E-Commerce merchant, it is quite natural you would want to know how estimated delivery date extensions work.
The customer goes to your website, views the product details, and then adds them to the cart. In the next step, when the customer opts for the checkout step, Magento 2 extensions start their work.
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Once the customer fulfills the shipping details and the shipping method, the client is asked to select the time and date for delivery. Once the delivery date is filled, a comment box ‘delivery comment’ appears for the customer. The customer can fill that or leave it empty.
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The payment method is reviewed in the last step, and the order is placed, and the estimated delivery date is offered.
While this is how the extension works for customers, it follows five steps for shop owners.
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Install the application
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Manage the delivery city through the Delivery date in the admin panel. You can add, delete, edit delivery city as you wish
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Configure the extension with the dates and other settings as you want the delivery process to follow.
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View the changes by going to the front-end
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You can view the delivery date and other information; you can change that as needed by going to the SALES admin panel.
As per the requirement, you can configure and block dates on which delivery cannot be done and enjoy other features that offer quite a lot of benefit to the shop owner and your customers to avail from with the Estimated Delivery Date Magento 2 extension.
Key Features
Magento 2 Estimated Delivery Date comes with robust features which are user-friendly for both you and your customer. Some of the key features are as follows:
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One can see the estimated delivery dates on multiple pages, including product, category, shopping cart, checkout, order confirmation, invoice, and shipment. It is displayed on the admin panel order page too.
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Customization of delivery dates as per the categories and products. You can set the delivery date for local and global shipment delivery date individually, and the subsidiary categories will inherit it automatically from the parent product and categories.
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You can use flexible delivery dates with the option of static and dynamic delivery dates.
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Exclude delivery from holidays where you can select local and global holiday dates. You can set them as a recurring, periodical, or a single date.
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As the admin, you can enable the cut-off time for delivery for certain products, so if an order is placed after the cut-off time, it won’t be added. This is especially beneficial when you are running some limited-time offers.
Apart from these, there is a range of other immensely beneficial features for the E-Commerce owner.
Related: Magento 2 is the Best Choice for Mobile Commerce.
Final Words
Magento 2 Estimated Delivery Date module essentially enhances the default shopping experience of the platform and therefore increases loyalty by offering the ability to advise customers about the estimated delivery date for various products. The tool can do wonders for any business as they are made to satisfy both you and your customers.
