Hey Guys,
It’s that time of year again when sales are really starting to pick up!
It’s also the time of year when standard shipping routes can get clogged-up and have delays.
Our Christmas cut-off date for using Express Line shipping will be November 28th , 2021 – make sure your orders are processed in by midnight on November 28th, 2021 to ensure the factory has enough time to produce and ship your products in time for Christmas.
Our Christmas cut-off date for using standard shipping will be November 18th , 2021 – make sure your orders are processed in by midnight on November 18th, 2021 to ensure the factory has enough time to produce and ship your products in time for Christmas. (This cutoff applies to US, Canada, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand…other countries may experience delays that exceed this cutoff time)
Although many products do make it to customers in time for the Holiday’s using the standard shipping method, there are typically excessive delays on a percentage of packages every year. With the added challenge of COVID-19 in 2021 there may be significant delays on a higher percentage of packages than a typical year.
To avoid the risk of dealing with upset customers, it’s best to switch your products and orders to express shipping and put a disclaimer on your site stating “If you don’t upgrade to express shipping, your packages may not arrive in time for the Holidays.”
If you don’t want to go through the trouble of updating all your products with the express line builder, the other option is to charge your customers increased shipping rates on checkout, and then manually upgrade their orders to express shipping inside the Pillow Profits admin.
Currently our production times are excellent (5-7 days) and EMS shipping is performing well (10-20 days on average). However, if you continue to use the standard shipping throughout the months of November and December, please do so at your own risk and understand that some of the packages will get stuck during the busiest time of the year and may take up to 60 days to get to your customers.
From our experience over the past four years, Express Shipping can become delayed, however the delays are nowhere near as bad as standard EMS and we still guarantee 30 days delivery with our express line option during the holidays. Currently express shipping is taking 6-12 days and is performing well.
Our Christmas cut-off date for using Express Line shipping will be November 28th , 2021 – make sure your orders are processed in by midnight on November 28th, 2021 to ensure the factory has enough time to produce and ship your products in time for Christmas.
Our Christmas cut-off date for using standard shipping will be November 18th , 2021 – make sure your orders are processed in by midnight on November 18th, 2021 to ensure the factory has enough time to produce and ship your products in time for Christmas. (This cutoff applies to US, Canada, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand…other countries may experience delays that exceed this cutoff time)
One final and **VERY IMPORTANT** note to make about using our express line delivery:
Make sure you collect your customer’s phone number if using express shipping! This greatly increases the odds of successful delivery so the couriers can communicate with your customers, and also assists in clearing customs in some European nations which require the customer’s phone number.
Also please note that express courtiers will not deliver to PO Boxes so make sure your customers are providing a residential or non PO box address on checkout. to ensure delivery.
You can configure your checkout on Shopify to require a phone number by going to Settings –> Checkout –> Form Options –> Shipping address phone number –> Required.
Hong Kong, Taiwan and Brazil require the recipient’s phone number as well as ID/Tax ID number for successful delivery.
Best of luck selling from the Pillow Profits Team!
