What is Scheduled Delivery and How Does It Work?

Did you know that 72% of customers value convenient delivery times just as much as fast delivery?

It makes sense: If you don’t know exactly when your delivery will arrive except “Tuesday”, it’s really hard to make plans. That’s why businesses that offer scheduled delivery options, with a choice of time windows, can stand out from the competition — even without offering super-fast same-day deliveries. Predictability 

In this post we’ll unpack in more detail exactly what scheduled deliveries are all about, how they can benefit both businesses and their customers, and how to get started with a delivery schedule. 

💡If you’re already sold on the benefits and just want to know how to schedule your deliveries — read our delivery scheduling tips and try the free template. 

What does scheduled delivery mean?

Scheduled delivery services are just what they sound like: A delivery is planned for a specific date, and often for a specific time window on that date. For example:

• You order groceries from your local store on a Monday night, and get the option to schedule your delivery for a two-hour time slot of your choice on Tuesday or Wednesday.
• You order a new pair of sneakers from an online retailer and get an email to say that your delivery has been scheduled for a certain date.

Scheduled delivery can be contrasted with on-demand delivery, where an order is packaged up and shipped out as soon as it comes in. Restaurant deliveries and Amazon are both examples of on-demand delivery. 

Scheduled deliveries have many advantages:

• They make it easier for you as a customer to plan your time. We all know and hate the feeling of waiting around all day for a delivery that eventually arrives at 8pm! It’s more convenient to plan around a set time frame. 
• They lower the cost of delivery for businesses and consumers: A bunch of orders can be batched together and sent out on the same delivery vehicle, saving unnecessary trips.

We’ll talk more about the benefits further down in this article — for now, let’s look at how scheduled deliveries work. 

Here’s how scheduled delivery works

Three main types of players are involved in scheduled delivery:

1. Shippers: The shipper or seller is the business that takes the order. Some shippers manage their own last-mile delivery operations — think of a local business like a florist, bakery, or craft brewery. Others contract with a carrier to make their deliveries, and may be able to request that the carrier schedule a specific delivery date, or range of dates. 
2. Carriers: These are specialist delivery services or logistics providers like UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL or local couriers. They usually plan their deliveries based on internal policies and schedules.
3. Consumers: Sometimes, a consumer ordering on an e-commerce site, on the phone, or in person can set their own delivery schedule based on available time slots or delivery windows.

If you’ve ordered anything online and you were able to choose a scheduled delivery date during checkout, you know how the process works!

Scheduling works best for last mile delivery, where the package being delivered starts out in the same town or city as the customer. It’s harder when items have to be shipped across a country or internationally, because there are a lot more players involved, like multiple carriers and even customs and border control agencies. 

That’s why you might get offered a choice of two-hour time windows for a local delivery, whereas a long-distance shipper can’t give you anything more specific than an estimated delivery date. 

We mentioned above that on-demand delivery was one alternative to scheduled delivery; the other common delivery option is a subscription model. Let’s look at these different delivery models in more detail:

On-demand vs subscription vs scheduled deliveries: What’s the difference?

The three main delivery models in today’s e-commerce retail landscape are:

1. On-demand delivery

On-demand delivery allows buyers to decide, on any date, that they need something delivered as soon as possible. For example:

• Food
• Groceries
• Office supplies
• Clothing

Delivery time will depend on the type of item, but most items will ship fast. Food may be delivered within minutes, and other items within a few hours, overnight, or within a few days — depending on where they’re being shipped from

On-demand delivery options sometimes come with real-time delivery status tracking. For example, in Doordash or Uber Eats you can track exactly where your driver is.   

As you can see, the level of urgency with on-demand delivery varies a lot:

• Restaurant meals, legal documents, and blood samples are examples of things that need to be delivered within very tight time frames.
• Other things like clothing, shoes, electronics, etc, are less urgent — so even though they are shipped on demand, they might still take a few days to arrive. 

Regardless of urgency, on-demand delivery comes at a premium. That’s because every item is shipped separately, with no opportunity to combine multiple packages into a single scheduled delivery route that can be handled by one delivery driver. 

2. Subscription delivery 

Delivery by subscription is another model that can be a win-win for both consumers and businesses. Done right, subscription deliveries can offer a great customer experience while also creating recurring revenue for sellers. 

Some examples of subscription delivery business models include:

• Meal prep kits: Hello Fresh is one of the most famous international brands, but there are many smaller, more local companies offering meal kits, like Vancouver’s Fresh Prep.  
• Flowers: Bears Blooms is a good example of a small local business offering flower subscriptions. 
• Pet food
• Books and education: KiwiCo is the most famous example. 
• Cosmetics 
• Almost anything you can think of!

For consumers, delivery subscriptions can offer “set it and forget it” convenience, often with the ability to choose how often they get deliveries. You might want an educational toy subscription to arrive once a month, for example, whereas meal prep kits need to be delivered weekly. 

For sellers, offering subscriptions can build a strong, reliable base of recurring revenue. Combined with the cost savings from being able to predict and schedule deliveries well in advance, this can increase profitability. 

3. Scheduled delivery

As we noted above, a scheduled delivery is one that is planned ahead to arrive within a specific time frame. This time frame could be as long as a day, or as short as 15 minutes. Companies who use delivery scheduling software like Routific typically offer delivery time windows between two and four hours long. 

Let’s look in more detail at the benefits of scheduled deliveries. 

What are the benefits of scheduled delivery?

Benefits for delivery services: Cost optimization and a consistent customer experience

1. Optimize delivery schedules and routes 

Delivery scheduling gives businesses control over their delivery operations and costs. They can group multiple deliveries for the same day or area into the same route, using a single vehicle. This saves on fuel, labor costs, and vehicle maintenance — and it’s better for the environment!

2. Offer a more consistent customer experience

Conventional wisdom says people want their deliveries fast — but when you dive deeper, most customers value convenience and predictability more than speed. 

Unless I’m hungry and ordering food I want to eat straight away, I’d rather arrange my deliveries for a time when it’s convenient to me. I want the ability to track my order’s progress so I know when it’s arriving, and I want it to arrive on time.

Delivery management software that enables scheduling with accurate ETAs can help a business meet all these customer demands.

“Overall, to the consumer, reliability could be more important than delivery speed.” — McKinsey.com

3. Stand out from the competition

Offering timely, consistent deliveries within a specific time window helps delivery services build a strong reputation. If businesses can deliver on their promises, they can gain a competitive advantage.

💡Routific’s delivery scheduling and route optimization software makes it easy to create profitable routes, with accurate ETAs and real-time tracking for a five-star customer experience.

Benefits of scheduled delivery for consumers: Convenience and predictability

1. Reliable delivery times

What do consumers gain from scheduled deliveries? Reliability and predictability. 

That’s worth a lot. One recent study found that 36% of consumers had frequent problems with deliveries arriving without notice when they weren’t there, leading to failed deliveries — and no doubt a whole lot of annoying and time-wasting emails or phone calls. 

Businesses that schedule their deliveries are more likely to communicate accurate ETAs and achieve on-time deliveries — which means more peace of mind for consumers. 

2. Convenience

Reliability and convenience go hand-in-hand. Scheduling deliveries for precise time windows means consumers can adjust their schedules as necessary. 

3. More cost-effective deliveries

Scheduled deliveries are less expensive than same- or next-day delivery. Often, consumers won’t pay any extra fees for scheduled deliveries, but the trade-off is that delivery times are slower than some of the expedited alternatives.

Best practices for offering scheduled delivery

To fully leverage the benefits of scheduled delivery, you need to have the right logistics systems and processes in place.

Here are a few practices to implement:

1. Use technology to optimize your route planning

Route optimization is the most effective way to ensure deliveries arrive on time. Delivery scheduling software, like Routific, can help you achieve this goal.

Routific optimizes routes in one click while keeping you in the driver’s seat. Want to adjust a route? Just drag and drop to move things around. Need to add a last-minute order? No problem.

Routes are optimized based on several factors, including historical traffic patterns and even driver happiness.

Optimizing routes is a must if you want to offer scheduled delivery, and technology can simplify the process.

2. Keep your customers informed

Consistent over-communication is the key to customer satisfaction! Your customer may know that their delivery is due to arrive on a specific day or at a specific time, but they still want to know what’s going on, where their order is, and whether it will actually arrive on time.

In fact, 96% of consumers say they track deliveries after ordering online, and 43% track deliveries daily.

Providing tracking information is a great start, but you can exceed customer expectations if you:

• Send notifications telling customers where their package is
• Use multiple channels — text, email, or even phone calls — to send updates 
• Alert them of delays and the reason for the hold-up

Keeping buyers updated on the status of their delivery can give your customer satisfaction rating a serious boost.

3. Measure results and keep optimizing 

Optimizing your routes is just one piece of the puzzle when offering scheduled deliveries. 

To succeed, you need to make sure that you’re tracking your results and leveraging that data to improve your delivery process.

Make sure you’re tracking important metrics, like:

• On-time delivery rate
• Success rate
• Number of deliveries
• Load and dwell time
• Customer satisfaction

Many route optimization software solutions, including Routific, can automate and streamline this process to save time.

What are the challenges of offering scheduled delivery?

There are so many advantages to offering scheduled delivery, but it’s not without challenges. Naturally, these issues affect both businesses and their customers. 

Delays and other roadblocks throw timelines off, and missed or delayed deliveries lead to unhappy customers.

Some of the biggest challenges of offering scheduled delivery include:

1. Managing last-minute changes

You can have the most optimized routes on the planet, but if a customer places a last-minute order and schedules a delivery for the same day or next day, it can throw a wrench in your plans.

If you don’t close out your delivery slot options in time, you may not be able to fulfill the customer’s order — and they may not be too forgiving about the situation. 

Cancellations can be equally painful to deal with, as you now have to find a way to fill up that time.

Look for software options like Routific that make it easier to accommodate last-minute changes to your schedule. 

2. Unexpected delivery delays

Even in the best-run delivery operations, delays can still happen — and they’re often caused by factors that are entirely out of your control.

Weather conditions and unexpected events, for example, can cause supply chain disruptions. Those disruptions can make it difficult or even impossible to make scheduled deliveries on time.

Delays, even when unexpected and out of your control, can upset customers. And they may just take their business elsewhere because you didn’t meet their expectations.

To meet this challenge, use customer notifications to give your customers a heads-up when things go wrong. 

Final thoughts

Scheduled delivery helps businesses manage their inventory and delivery schedule more efficientlhy, while giving customers a convenient option for receiving their items. It’s one of many options businesses have to meet customer expectations, with many advantages. 

But it’s important to take the right approach and ensure that this delivery model is a good fit for your business.

Investing in a route optimization solution like Routific can help vanquish inefficiencies and ensure your deliveries arrive at customer doorsteps when they expect it. 

FAQs

Who should offer scheduled delivery?

Theoretically, scheduled delivery is an option for any type of business. It doesn’t matter what you sell or how small or large your operations are, you could offer the option for scheduled deliveries.

In practice, however, this form of delivery works better for some companies than others. 

For example, retailers that offer large items or products that must be handled with care can benefit from offering scheduled deliveries. It allows them to better manage their inventory and logistics. 

Does scheduled for delivery mean out for delivery?

Imagine this: You order something from Amazon and expect it to arrive in two days. But you check the tracker and it says “scheduled for delivery.” What does that mean? Is your package really out for delivery? Will it arrive today?

Here’s the deal: No, your package is not on the road in a truck and out for delivery. The good news? Your package should arrive on the scheduled delivery date.

If your package is en route to your door, the tracker will explicitly state that it’s “out for delivery.”

What does UPS scheduled delivery mean?

If you’re expecting a package from UPS, Fedex, or another carrier and the tracker has a “scheduled delivery” date, this means that your package is expected to arrive on that date.

As long as everything goes as planned, you can expect your package to hit your doorstep on the scheduled delivery day. There may even be a time window for your delivery, but take it with a grain of salt. 

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