Same-Day Handling Time – How to Successfully Use It?

[calntom]

I am thinking of moving from 1-Day to Same-Day handling to try to increase sales. I sell many products related to construction needs, so many of the products ordered need a quick delivery. Easily, over 50% of my shipments go out same day regardless at this time, so I might try the same-day shipping to improve the “Guaranteed by Date” and perhaps, increase sales.

My rural USPS contractor picks up and scans consistently between 1pm and 2pm. I have until 4pm to drop off at the USPS counter which is a 12 minute jaunt into town.

I also use UPS for the heavier items and I can get those there by 4pm to the Pack-N-Ship, UPS drop-off place that is a 5 minute trip.

Most of the products ordered can be readied for shipping in 5-10 minutes or less. I do carry many larger items that can take an hour or two to prepare to ship UPS as I custom make larger boxes to fit appropriately to avoid damage. Perhaps I could have a different shipping policy for the very large products? As it stands now, I only use 3 shipping policies. 1st Class, Priority and UPS Ground. All are set with 1-Day Handling at this time.

For those that are now using or have taken the Same-Day handling path, what would a reasonably safe cut-off time be for ordering a product with same-day handling?

Please comment on any other pitfalls or advantages to Same-Day Handling.

I appreciate your feedback, thank you.

[dhbookds · Accepted solution]

I would experiment on the "easy" to do stuff.........to try to find out if it seems to increase business.... and probably be a bit conservative on the cut off time to be sure I didn't get overwhelmed....... say use noon.

The other thing to consider is understanding that every wk day you are going to have to be able to do it.....to be home between say noon and 4 or whatever the PO closing time is.....  just be sure you don't have "occasional" commitments that will conflict........

Look at when people are ordering now and the time zones.  If you live on east coast and sell lots to the west coast.....noon your time will equate to 9 am  their time, so noon may NOT garner as many new sales and a later than noon cutoff.........

just disjointed thoughts on 1 cup of coffee....

[threshold.sales.group]

Fwiw, I don't think same day handling is worth the risk and / or the extra hassle involved.  I don't see any real significant bump in search vs. 1 day handling and the dangers to your selling metrics are real.  A hard to find item in inventory, a batch of hard to package orders, a family or business emergency that takes a few hours away or an unscanned batch of packages by the carrier - all things that are common.  Better imo, to allow for some room for flex in your business operations and as a rule under promise and over deliver. 

[calntom]

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@dhbookds wrote:

I would experiment on the "easy" to do stuff.........to try to find out if it seems to increase business.... and probably be a bit conservative on the cut off time to be sure I didn't get overwhelmed....... say use noon.

The other thing to consider is understanding that every wk day you are going to have to be able to do it.....to be home between say noon and 4 or whatever the PO closing time is.....  just be sure you don't have "occasional" commitments that will conflict........

Look at when people are ordering now and the time zones.  If you live on east coast and sell lots to the west coast.....noon your time will equate to 9 am  their time, so noon may NOT garner as many new sales and a later than noon cutoff.........

just disjointed thoughts on 1 cup of coffee....

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I like your whole post. Not too shabby on one cup of coffee. The nuts and bolts of kicking off Same-Day handling.

I only have 3 business shipping policies. 1st Class has 783 items and they are "quick ships", so that would be a good one to experiment with and can be changed on the fly if I run into any emergencies. Priority and UPS have ~190 items each and those take longer to pack. I can hold off on those listings. As you stated, I have to be aware of any conflicts that might arise.

I am going to give it a whirl next week around taking a couple of granddaughters to the Perot Museum. lol 

[calntom]

I went ahead and kicked off same-day handling for 783 items that ship 1st Class from the Dallas area. 

Clicking on my listings that have a Guaranteed 3-Day Delivery to, I assume, my zip code shows 982 listings that qualify, which includes a lot of my Priority shipped items that have a 1-Day handling

If anyone could look, what does it show from your location as to how many listings show Guaranteed 3-Day Delivery?

For future reference:

What is the appropriate response to a buyer that sends me a message stating they did not receive their item within eBay's guaranteed delivery time? Say, I shipped the item within my handling time and received the correct scan date, but USPS or UPS did not delivery the package within the  time frame that eBay promised?

I realize that eBay is picking up the tab for those cases through the end of the year. Suppose the buyer does not know how to proceed in order to get their monies back from eBay for the failed delivery time promise.

What is the appropriate path or link or phone number to refer to the buyer?