45% of customers will abandon their carts and switch to a competitor if your delivery options are unsatisfactory. This is bad for you. You have to go the extra mile. “But I have same-day delivery,” you may say. “How much farther can I go?”

This is where timeslot delivery comes in. It’s exactly what it sounds like. You let a customer choose the window of time in which they want their delivery. Your customers are busy people so optimizing your deliveries around their schedules can never be a bad thing.

How a customer benefits from timeslot deliveries

  1. It reduces the rate of package theft since a customer will be home when the delivery is made.
  2. It increases the customer’s faith in your brand.
  3. It allows customers to schedule deliveries for when it’s most convenient for them.

How timeslot deliveries benefit you as a merchant

  1. Better logistics planning.
  2. Fewer missed deliveries which reduces shipping costs as you don’t have to try delivering the same package twice.
  3. Increased customer loyalty because of the more convenient delivery schedule.

Limitations of timeslot deliveries

The biggest limitation of timeslot deliveries is that they can only be local. You can only guarantee timeslot deliveries for a couple of miles around your physical store or warehouse. If you’re shipping across the country, then it becomes impossible to guarantee delivery times to the hour.

Other limitations include

  1. You need to manage time slot delivery in-house. It will be hard to guarantee delivery times if you have outsourced your delivery to another organization that has its own schedules.
  2. It might be hard to actually adhere to tight schedules. Pick reasonably wide timeslots, say two or three hours. There are a lot of things that need to be done between when an order is received and when it’s delivered. Allow yourself enough time to do those things. Also factor in common errors and things like traffic. Don’t limit yourself to a one-hour or 30-minute time slot and then fail to deliver within the time slot. The customer won’t be happy. The time slot can’t be too wide either. You can’t have a 12-hour time slot, for example, so it’s a delicate balancing act.