Platform: Nexternal
With the Expected Fulfillment feature, merchants can set how long it takes them to turn around a package after an order is received, designate any holidays and other non-shipping days that must be taken into account, set cut off times for same-day orders, and enter time-in-transit by shipment method to each zone if a time-in-transit isn’t provided by the carrier through the integration.
Using this information the TrueCommerce Nexternal platform can automatically calculate and display the date upon which a package is likely to arrive at the customer’s address for each shipping method, thereby assisting the customer in choosing the best method and eliminating customer service calls about when to expect their package. Further, the shipped emails generated from the TrueCommerce Nexternal platform can contain tracking information, making it easy for customers to track their packages on their own.
About Expected Fulfillment
The Expected Fulfillment options in Settings / Edit Site Options / Expected Fulfillment, are split into three sections. The first section refers to options that are shared by shipped and picked up products. The second section, Expected Shipping Time, refers to options that control when a customer will expect to receive their shipment, and is used for setting the optional Preferred Delivery Date. The third section, Preferred Pickup Date, optionally can be used to allow a customer to specify when they plan to pick up an order.
Set your Expected Turnaround Date
The Expected Turnaround is used as the number of days within which a product or SKU with a Status of Normal is expected by the merchant to ship or be ready for pickup. The merchant may select whether calendar days, business days (i.e. non-holiday weekdays) or shipping days (i.e. those non-holiday weekdays selected as Available Shipping Days) apply. This field works with the Cutoff Time fields within Expected Shipping Time and Preferred Pickup Date; provided that the order is placed before the appropriate Cutoff Time and on a business or shipping day (if selected), the product is expected to ship or be available for pickup in the entered number of calendar/business/shipping days forward of the current date. If the order is placed on a non-business/shipping day (if selected), or after the Cutoff Time, counting begins with the next calendar/business/shipping day.
For Preferred Delivery Date & Preferred Pickup Date, Select Maximum Days Forward
The Maximum Days Forward is used to set the furthest future date available for a Preferred Delivery Date or a Preferred Pickup Date. So for example, a merchant may only want to allow orders to be placed three months in advance, or six weeks in advance during some parts of the year, but may want to allow Holiday orders four months in advance.
Set Available Ship Days at the Ship-From Address Level
In Settings/ Ship-From Addresses, enter the available shipping days for all products tagged to each Ship-From Address. These available shipping days are used in conjunction with the Expected Fulfillment feature. If Expected Shipping Time is on, the Available Days are used to determine when an order (or order segment) is expected to ship; and, if Preferred Delivery Date is also on, which delivery dates are available to be selected by the customer. Setting these dates at the Ship-From Address level allows merchants to accommodate products that ship separately and on different schedules than other products.
Tell Customers When Items will be Back In Stock
The Preordered In Stock, Backordered In Stock, and Sold Out In Stock fields allow you to enter a default estimation for the amount of time required for an item to become back in stock (i.e. the Expected In Stock Date) when the product or SKU becomes Preordered, Backordered, or Sold Out, respectively. You may override the default assumption when creating or editing a product, or via the Product or Attribute Import (Products/Import). If an Expected In Stock Date exists, that information may be conveyed on the Product List and Detail screens (e.g. Expected in stock 10/23/2021), also depending on the value of the Display Expected Shipping field (Layout/Main Layout/Visibility Rules).
rev: 10/25/2022