custom delivery expectation for specific products

[alanrichardtex]

We stock most of the products we sell, but some items are custom made and the fufillment will take longer. How can we make it so it shows a different delivery expectation for those specific items.

my store is alanrichardtextiles.com

[Imogen]

Hi there, @alanrichardtex. Thanks for taking the time to reach out to the Shopify Community here with your question around your products and your delivery notifications! My name is Imogen. It's good to meet you!

Can you provide us with some more detail around your request? Where are you attempting to edit the information being shown to your customers around the delivery expectation?

If you're referring to the information shown in the checkout, you could move these custom made products to their own shipping profile, and set up customer shipping rates for these products. You can rename these custom rates, and add a rate description, to allow for this information around fulfillment being a tad longer to be presented to your customers in checkout. 

You can also clearly indicate this on this specific product's product page using bolding wording in your product description, product title, or even via an announcement bar that hands on the pages of your site just underneath your header. This is what many folks do when it comes to letting customers know about pre-orders, or setting expectations around longer wait times for shipment. 

[alanrichardtex]

yes that is what im referring to. The information shown to the customer at checkout, and the info shown when we view the orders from our end. It will say delivery expectation passed. 

I tried setting up seperate profiles for these items, but i think the issue was it wanted me to make custom rates, but it will still ship based off usps or ups rates. Just the processing (creating the custom item) takes longer. So i wasnt able to do it that way, because i don't have custom rates for these products, it should still be based off the usps and ups prices. just some extra handling time on those products.

[Imogen]

Thanks for following up, @alanrichardtex! At this time, there's no way to assign specific shipping/handling/processing times to specific products so that this information can be shown in the checkout. As this isn't currently available, using alternative methods to present this information, like what I've outlined with Custom Rates, would be potential method of doing so.

How do you currently offer shipping in your store? Do you use Shopify Shipping rates? Do you use flat rates? I'm asking this because, if you're using Shopify Shipping, and your custom-made products are stocked at a location you operate, and not an app location, then you can offer custom rates for these products and purchase the shipping labels for these orders using Shopify Shippings label purchasing functionality. 

This should remove the issue you're having with custom rates that you mentioned, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're describing. This is the easiest way to have this information presented to your customer in checkout, unless the products are being housed in a location attached to an application.

Beyond that, you are not able to edit the coding of the checkout in order for it to know to show custom messaging when specific products are in the cart. Instead, I refer back to the idea I shared with you above regarding clearly stating that these custom made products will have a longing processing time on the product's product page, and in it's description. This is a totally appropriate way to make customers aware of this slightly longer processing time without needing to create custom rates, or change your current shipping setup. You can also make use of the Theme Language Editor to change some of the static wording on your checkout to make customer's aware that they should refer to a product's description for processing/handling times. You can also include this information in a Shipping Policy, and edit the language in your order confirmation emails to re-iterate this information.

I'm going to take some time to relay this thread to our developers, as the ability to assign a specific lead time to a product would be helpful for you here, and would assist you with having to avoid customers potentially missing this information if it needs to be house in the product's description, title, or product page. 

[alanrichardtex]

currently we offer usps and ups carrier calculated rates. and we ship all over the world so setting a specific custom shipping price for these products wouldn't work for us because it varies to much based on location, and some of these items are large, or heavy, so it really needs to be able to be calculated based on the order and location. 

I'm not really understanding how custom rates would help if we need it to be calculated based on usps or ups rates, and while needing to add the extra handling time. 

I did create a product template for some of these items where it specifies that it will take 2-3 weeks for delivery. But yeah being able to show that in the order details and checkout with be ideal so nothing misleading. 

here is one product thats using the template with the custom liquid for the shipping info. https://alanrichardtextiles.com/products/drbd30

thank you for forwarding the thread to the developers. Hopefully something will be setup so custom dates can be added. even if there is a option when editing products to apply handing time per product that would be very helpful.