Pop up windows for shipping cut-off times

[graywolf]

I work for a retailer who has a large amount of gift giving traffic (christmas/hanukah, valentines, mothers day). We have found that no matter how big, bold and red we made the shipping cut-off dates nobody read them, so we choose to use a pop-up window when you hit the first page on the site. So now people do see it but we get quite a few complaints. Curious if anyone else has similar problems or tried a differnt solution.

[Filipe]

Hi graywolf, and welcome to the forums.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "Shipping cut-off dates". I've been in ecommerce for about a year now and I've had to create all of our software in-house, so I've had to work around lots of problems, especially with getting certain things noticed.

Elaborate a little, and I'm sure the rest of the posters will help you out.

[graywolf]

for example

to insure that your gifts arrive by mothers day please use the following shipping cut-off dates

may 3rd - ground shipping
may 5th - second day shipping
may 6th - next day shipping

[john316]

I would probably use a required field checkbox on the checkout form:

"I understand that my order will not arrive by <include>holiday</include>".

Your current policy is kinda like punishing the whole class for the misbehaviour of a few.

[Filipe]

Can they actually purchase items off the site, or is it some other kind of system?

If so, here are my questions, suggestions, and gripes

1. How do you know they're weren't seeing the cut-off dates? Were people complaining about you not posting them or what?

2. Why would you make it a pop-up on the first page of the site? You shouldn't give them that information until they're choosing their shipping times (though a pop-up would still annoy there).

3. What you could do is put a confirmation after they choose their shipping. When they choose their shipping, have the next page say "You chose to use Ground/Next Day/Second Day shipping. Your package should arrive in X days. " then do some basic math, and if the options they chose won't meet said holiday, put under that "This may not meet Holiday_name. We recommend you use these options." then give them the option of changing their shipping options, or proceeding.

[graywolf]

yes you actually can purchase items. I'm not so sure about having them check something off saying they know about shipment, currently about 70% of the sales come from a gift registry, where the people aren't concerned about the holiday issue.

[mack]

When a customer to your site has chose their order and clicks on checkout or what ever you use. you could them prompt them with your pop up window. "your order will arive within x days from today" perhaps your users are finding the pop up on the homepage a bit pushy. You may even find that somepeople will close it before it loads (thinking it is an advert)