Estimated delivery time is important information for customers evaluating a possible purchase. The estimated delivery time may be displayed as an annotation in your free listings and Shopping ads. To calculate overall delivery time, you need to specify cut-off time, handling time, and transit time. (Keep in mind that Google can also calculate your delivery times based on your shipping carrier or partner data) Learn more about calculating your shipping speeds based on your carrier.
Understanding estimated delivery date
Estimated delivery date is the “arrives by” date that customers are shown when checking out. This value is calculated as “maximum handling days + maximum transit days”. Estimated delivery date is calculated using days, and also takes order cutoff time into account.
Holiday effects on estimated delivery date
Orders with handling or transit time that overlap with a holiday will have the estimated delivery date extended by a day. The following holidays are considered non-business days when calculating estimated delivery date:
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Australia
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Brazil
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Canada
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France
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Germany
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India
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Japan
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New Zealand
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South Korea
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United Kingdom
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United States
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Here is an example of what estimated delivery date might look like with the settings below in Merchant Center:
- Order placed after the cut-off of 3 p.m. EST
- 0 - 1 handling days (fulfilled Monday - Friday)
- 3 - 5 transit days (fulfilled Monday - Saturday)
| Minimum estimated delivery date: 6 calendar days | Maximum estimated delivery date: 9 calendar day | ||||
| Day of order | Day of week | Status | Day of order | Day of week | Status |
| Day 1 | Wednesday | Order placed after cutoff | Day 1 | Wednesday | Order placed after cutoff |
| Day 2 | Thursday | Handling time | Day 2 | Thursday | Handling time begins (Day 0*) |
| Day 3 | Friday | Transit time | Day 3 | Friday | Handling time ends (Day 1) |
| Day 4 | Saturday | Transit time | Day 4 | Saturday | Transit time |
| Day 5 | Sunday | No action | Day 5 | Sunday | No action |
| Day 6 | Monday | Transit time (including Delivery day) | Day 6 | Monday | Transit time |
| Day 7 | Tuesday | Transit time | |||
| Day 8 | Wednesday | Transit time | |||
| Day 9 | Thursday | Transit time (including delivery day) | |||
* “Day 0” means “same day” for orders placed before the cut-off time. For orders placed after cut-off, “Day 0” is then the next business day. In other words, all handling time is counted starting with “Day 0,” regardless of when the order is placed in relation to the cut-off time.
If a customer places an order at 8 p.m. EST on Wednesday, at checkout, they’ll see “arrives by the following Thursday.” Since the customer missed the daily order cutoff, the delivery estimate doesn’t begin calculating until the following day. Keep in mind that while Merchant Center will show you a range of delivery days, the customer will see the nine-day estimate to account for any potential issues that arise during processing and shipping.
Estimated delivery time set up
Step 1 of 3: Set up cut-off time
Cut-off time is the time by which your customer needs to place their order for it to begin processing on the same day. Orders that miss the cut-off time don't begin processing until the following business day. Cut-off time is an optional value that you can set. If you leave it blank, then the default time will be 8:00 a.m. PST.
Step 2 of 3: Set up handling time
Handling time refers to the number of business days needed to process an order before it ships. Handling time normally starts when an order is placed by a customer and ends when a carrier picks up the package for shipment.
If all of your items require the same amount of time to process, handling time should be configured in Merchant Center within each shipping service. If the processing time varies by product, then handling time can be added to the product feed to each item using the maximum handling time [max_handling_time] and minimum handling time [min_handling_time] attributes. When handling time values exist in both Merchant Center and in the product feed, the item-level value will override the Merchant Center value for that specific item only. Learn more about the handling time attributes.
To add handling time to a shipping policy:
In your Merchant Center account, click Shipping and returns from the left navigation menu.
Under the “Shipping policies” tab, click Add shipping policy.
In your “Add your shipping information” page, complete the steps for the “Countries” and “Product” tabs.
On the “Delivery times” page, select Enter specific delivery times manually.
In the "Handling time (days)" section, enter the minimum number of days required for processing an order, followed by the maximum number of days possible.
Step 3 of 3: Set up transit time
This is the number of business days it takes for a carrier to deliver a package once it is picked up from your facility. Transit time has to be configured in Merchant Center, either with a single range (for example, “3-5 days”).
To add transit time to a shipping service:
In your Merchant Center account, click Shipping and returns from the left navigation menu.
Under the “Shipping policies” tab, click on Add shipping policy.
In your “Add your shipping information” page, complete the steps for the “Countries” and “Product” tabs.
On the “Delivery times” page, select Enter specific delivery times manually.
In the “Transit time (days)” section, select Destination by zone from the “Transit time” drop down and add zones with different transit times associated with each destination. You can add more destinations as needed.
Learn more about setting up Regional shipping settings.
If you want your transit time to apply to specific areas of the country or if you want to distinguish by certain product groups use shipping label [shipping_label] attribute.