How & why you should offer 2-day shipping to your customers
[Updated post from June 10, 2022]
Shoppers want their orders ASAP. Giants like Amazon and Walmart have made 2-day shipping the norm for customers – and Express services play a crucial role in meeting and exceeding these expectations.
With same-day delivery becoming increasingly commonplace, the expectation to offer fast delivery speeds has customers feeling more impatient than ever. The allure of free next-day delivery, especially for elite program members, adds another layer of competitive advantage in the ecommerce space.
As an ecommerce brand, 2-day shipping is the bare minimum to stay competitive. Customers expect express shipping, but here’s the rub: They also want free deliveries, too.
Is it possible for ecommerce businesses to compete with the giants, even with smaller order volume and a lack of fulfillment infrastructure?
Yes – and we’ll explain how.
This guide will show you the most important things you need to know about two-day shipping and how to offer it to your customers.
What is 2-day shipping?
Two-day shipping is the process of shipping online orders to customers within two days of the order being placed. With the likes of Amazon and Walmart setting faster delivery benchmarks, two-day delivery is now an essential part of any winning ecommerce strategy.
Offering a day-definite delivery guarantee – and sticking to it – ensures customer satisfaction and trust by providing a reliable delivery timeline, especially when standard shipping options often lack the predictability that consumers demand.
The benefits of 2-day shipping
As ecommerce grows more saturated and customer acquisition costs continue to rise, any ecommerce brand that offers free standard shipping alongside faster options like 2-day shipping has a strong competitive advantage:
Keep up with Amazon
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room; 2-day shipping is one of Amazon’s biggest selling points and the reason it’s so ubiquitous on doorsteps across the country. And thanks to this innovation, online shoppers now view free two-day shipping as the standard for ecommerce.
So, unless you’re selling a genuinely one-of-a-kind product, you’re likely to lose customers to Amazon and other ecommerce giants if you can’t match their fast shipping speeds.
Customers want fast deliveries
As delivery times across ecommerce speed up, customer expectations shift in tandem. So, you’ll have much better odds of boosting customer acquisition and growing your business if you offer 2-day shipping. Mentions of shipping speeds in your emails, paid ads, and social posts are a great way to drive traffic to your online store and boost conversions.
More repeat customers
Just as express shipping is more likely to get customers to hit ‘purchase’, customers who get their orders delivered quickly are more likely to make those coveted repeat purchases that build sustainable business growth over time. Your end-to-end fulfillment and shipping workflow – order processing, picking and packing, shipping, and the last mile needs to be executed seamlessly every time to keep building that brand trust.
How 2-day shipping works
Depending on your brand’s definition, two-day shipping can refer to either two business days or any two days in the week. Usually, 2-day shipping operates on the cut-off time system that manages when orders are shipped, which starts the ‘clock’ for hitting this shipping speed.
Note that this differs from two-day delivery, where the customer is guaranteed to receive their package within two days or less, which requires much faster express shipping options.
For example, Walmart uses two business days and an order cut-off time to manage shipping expectations. If a customer places an order after the cutoff time on Sunday, they can expect to receive their order on or before the following Wednesday, as Saturday and Sunday aren’t business days.
Some companies start counting those two days from when the order is packed, regardless of whether it’s a business day. Whichever model you choose, deliveries eligible for two-day shipping are typically handled between two shipping methods: air shipping and ground shipping.
Two day shipping options
Air shipping
Air shipping is mainly used for international shipping or domestic shipping of orders from one coast to another. Unsurprisingly, air shipping costs are high, making it nearly impossible to offer free two-day shipping to customers, unless you have a high order minimum in place.
Ground shipping
Ground shipping uses delivery trucks to move orders from the fulfillment center to the customer’s doorstep. Because it’s slower than air shipping, ground services are much cheaper and more accessible for small ecommerce brands. However, if you don’t have multiple fulfillment centers spread across the country, offering 2-day delivery via ground shipping is extremely difficult.
Ground services are often highlighted for their cost-effectiveness relative to express options. However, they may have longer delivery timeframes and cannot guarantee 2-day shipping. On the flip side, air shipping is too expensive to use for all customer orders, especially if your business isn’t charging for delivery.
How to offer free two day shipping (affordably!)
As you can see, the costs associated with two-day shipping quickly ramp up. If you’re not careful, these operational costs can cut deep into your bottom line.
While transferring shipping costs to customers will alleviate this, you’re going to sacrifice customer acquisition in the process. So, how can you find the right balance?
Ground shipping is your best friend
Ground shipping is a cost-effective way to keep your shipping costs low while delivering orders quickly. However, ground shipping only works if you have fulfillment centers distributed throughout the country. Since most customers are likely to come from big cities, fulfillment centers should be located in key metro areas.
If you can’t manage a wide network of fulfillment centers, you can limit those faster shipping options to customers within a specified zip code.
Use a free shipping threshold
Footing the bill for shipping on small order values can result in ecommerce businesses making a loss, something that isn’t viable for the non-Amazons of the ecosystem. Implementing a threshold to determine eligibility for free shipping ensures that your business is only paying for shipping when there is a decent profit margin. Best of all, free shipping minimums give consumers that little extra incentive to spend more to qualify!
Manage dimensional weight
The cost of ecommerce shipping – or matter what the speed or service level – is determined by package size and weight. The higher the dimensional weight of a package, the more it will cost you to ship. Large, lightweight packages will set your business back the most, due to the amount of space they take up on a delivery truck or aircraft.
So, by streamlining package size, the cost of 2-day shipping goes down drastically. Some expedited service levels do have a maximum combined length for packages, so splitting shipments into multiple packages is another way to lower shipping cost while ensuring fast delivery.
Offer 2-day shipping as part of a paid membership plan
Amazon offers a massive fulfillment network – but only Amazon Prime members get to enjoy get free two-day shipping. You can also offer the same for your business!
A paid membership program allows customers to pay for shipping upfront, rather than experiencing the friction of paying for shipping on every order. As well as helping to offset shipping costs, membership programs allow you to experiment with a bunch of other perks too, such as freebies, early access to sales, and exclusive discounts that promote retention.
Leverage multiple fulfillment centers
Operating from just one fulfillment center drastically limits your two-day shipping capabilities, as you can only guarantee two day shipping to a small geographic area. This may not be a problem if your customer base is mostly local, but if you’re shipping nationwide and want to offer 2-day shipping to all of your customers, using multiple fulfillment centers is a must. Multi-node fulfillment short transit times and distances to your customers by shipping out of the closest fulfillment center, meaning you can potentially offer even faster delivery services.
Offer faster express services for a fee
For those customers who need their purchases even faster than 2-day shipping can offer, offering paid overnight shipping as a strategic alternative is wise. While it comes with higher costs for the customer, it meets the demand for speed, setting a benchmark for customer service excellence.
Outsource fulfillment and shipping to a 3PL
Hitting 2-day shipping timeframes isn’t just about the service level you choose; it’s also about how quickly you can process, pick, and pack customer orders ready for shipping. Without a streamlined ecommerce fulfillment process, your business will never be able to fulfill online orders quickly enough to meet expedited delivery times – even with the fastest air shipping method on side.
Most ecommerce brands don’t have the fulfillment infrastructure and expertise to handle order fulfillment for expedited shipping, especially when considering the nuances of residential delivery. When planning for 2-day shipping, it’s crucial to factor in the additional costs and logistical considerations for things of Saturday delivery, additional fees, and holiday delivery during peak season. By outsourcing fulfillment to a 3PL, you can ensure that packages shipped for 2 day shipping or even next-day shipping have the best possible chance of meeting their targeted transit times.
Work with a 3PL like ShippingTree
If you’re ready to scale, you might be considering partnering with a 3PL partner. But why choose ShippingTree?
2-day delivery
Our fulfillment teams operate at the intersection of tech enablement of traditional expertise. When you work with ShippingTree, we help you streamline operational logistics and reach Amazon-level delivery speeds.
All-in-one fulfillment
Because freight companies and Amazon FBA can only help you out so much. Our all-in-one fulfillment offering helps you manage the entirety of your supply chain and logistics operations.
Reduced shipping costs
You can’t provide expedited shipping consistently at scale without either charging customers more or reducing your shipping costs. With ShippingTree, you don’t have to make the tough call – you can make the right one instead.
2-day shipping FAQs
Is 2-day shipping really two days?
2-day shipping doesn’t always mean the customer receives the package within 48 hours of placing the order. The clock starts once the item is shipped from the fulfillment center. Moreover, ‘two days’ typically means two business days.
For example, fulfillment center workers need to pick, pack, and label an order before it’s ready for shipping. So, if a customer places the order late at night, it will miss the shipping cut-off time and won’t be shipped until the following day.
Is 2-day shipping guaranteed?
The delivery timeframe of 2-day shipping will depend on the shipping carrier and the service level chosen. Services such as USPS Priority Mail and FedEx 2Day clear delivery timeframes and additional benefits such as free pickup, tracking, and insurance coverage. Although these delivery options are more expensive, they are more reliable than economy ground options when it comes to delivery times.
Even in cases where the seller provides a money-back guarantee, they still leave room for mishaps such as missing or stolen packages or lousy weather. As an online seller, you shouldn’t hastily provide guarantees around two-day shipping. However, you should try to uphold your promises as much as you can.
How much is 2-day priority mail shipping?
Many factors affect the cost of two-day shipping, including:
- Your chosen carrier
- Service level
- Package dimensions
- Shipping date and time (shipping costs tend to rise during the holiday season)
- Point of origin
- Shipping destination
- Shipment volume
2-day shipping isn’t just about delivery speed; it’s a strategic growth initiative that meets customer expectations for near-instant gratification. When customers can purchase goods in one click, they expect the delivery experience to be just as seamless. Streamlining your fulfillment operation to offer 2-day shipping opens the door to better acquisition, retention, – and even faster delivery speeds once you’ve adopted best practices for ecommerce fulfillment.
