Displaying Estimated Delivery Dates Improves Conversions Across the Shopping Journey

While shopping online, we must have probably come across estimated delivery date (EDD) displays for products - helping us determine whether our item would arrive before our child's birthday or not, for example. Or if we are picking up in the store, what time slot is it soonest available to pick up? Some e-commerce sites show this information and some others don’t. Surveys suggest it does help us to make an informed choice, and we are more likely to make a purchase if this information is visible. 

On the other hand, we must have seen a delivery date that was too far out and it impacted your decision to purchase. 

In this article, we will dive into three key areas where Estimated Delivery Dates (EDD) impact customer behavior and benefit online retailers:

1. Cart abandonment due to lack of EDD on Checkout
2. Higher Conversion when EDD is displayed across the customer journey
3. Higher Conversion when sooner delivery dates are displayed as compared to conservative delivery dates
4. Higher Loyalty and repeat customers when promises made are kept.
   
   
   

According to a survey by Digitalcommerce360.com:

• 39% of customers desire a Guaranteed Delivery Date.
• 18% of cart abandonment happens because Delivery Date expectations weren’t met.
• 12% of cart abandonment happens because customers don’t see any expected delivery date at the checkout page.
  
  
  

Further, according to TheGood.com:

• 75.1% of shoppers said putting an EDD on the product page or in the cart positively influences their decision to buy! Wow - 75%!

Those are significant numbers! For example, a retailer generating $20M in online sales annually, improving the cart conversion rate from 2% to 2.1% could add $200,000 in extra sales.

Now, imagine a simple, low-cost, plug-and-play solution that lets you display delivery dates across the customer journey. You could see up to a 20% jump in conversion rates right from the start! In many ways, the extra profit generated by this solution pays for itself rather quickly.

Our Research: What Are Retailers Doing Today?

We conducted internal research on US retail websites using IBM Sterling OMS and found the following:

• A total of 62 websites were mapped across the customer journey.
• Only 27 displayed a fixed delivery date on the checkout page (e.g., delivered on June 25).
• 15 displayed a range of delivery dates (e.g., delivery between June 25–30).
• 20 didn’t display any date at checkout.
• 44 websites didn’t show any estimated delivery dates on the product display or listing page.
  
  

This was surprising to us. Why? Why are so many retailers not using a simple metric to improve their customer site experience and conversion? Let’s break it down.

Why Are So Many Retailers Missing the EDD?

There are often challenges and conflicting opinions when it comes to the front-end team and supply chain teams - who will own that metric, is it the Marketing team? Or is it the Supply chain team? Online conversions are most likely the Marketing team's metrics- but since this is driven and kept by the Supply chain, should the Supply chain team be the one paying for the change?

Also, supply chain complexity plays a huge role here. Not every retailer can implement an off-the-shelf solution due to varying requirements. Every supply chain has its own set of challenges—geographical constraints, different product types, fulfilment network complexity, and integration issues. Some have items shipped from their vendors, some are made to order, there are their own delivery fleet, there are multitudes of complexity at times.

There are a variety of delivery date solutions available, ranging from SaaS, hybrid, on-premise, and custom-built options. While some retailers are opting for off-the-shelf SaaS solutions for simplicity, many larger retailers with complex supply chains prefer custom-built solutions that are more tailored to their needs.

EDD is quickly becoming a table stakes feature for e-commerce success. If your platform doesn’t offer an EDD display, you risk losing out to competitors who are meeting customer expectations.

Challenges of Implementing EDD

The reasons behind the lack of EDD implementation include:

• Legacy e-commerce OMS systems that don’t support EDD calculations or can’t integrate with the front-end to display the date.
• Costly solutions that may be out of reach for smaller retailers.
• Time delays in implementing EDD solutions, as many solutions can increase page load times (over 80ms can negatively affect user experience).
• Challenges of integrating with Front-end.

What’s the Solution?

The good news is that there are now easy, affordable solutions available to display estimated delivery dates across the customer journey. There’s a broad range of options designed to fit various needs and budgets. These solutions can be integrated quickly and provide immediate value to your business by improving conversion rates.

Even better solutions can help you do rate shopping to save costs and time with shifting your carriers to better ones out there—like IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising. Nextuple has built up a strong practice for accelerating value for customers using robust solutions like this.

Want to know more? Contact us to learn about solutions that deliver the most accurate delivery date information in the quickest, most cost-effective way!