Shipping notification time

The shipping notification time represents the minimum time required for the delivery service to initiate the delivery or pickup process.

In the case of SHP delivery method, the minimum shipping notification time can be modeled as the time required for the carrier service or on-demand delivery to acknowledge the delivery request. While in the case of PICK delivery method, the shipping notification time can be modeled to allow the pickup workers to move the product to the respective pickup location such as a kiosk locker or on a shelf at the pickup center prior to customer walk-in.

You can define the shipping notification time in hours for list of date ranges and specific time for each day of the week. To maximize fulfillment time, the shipping notification is applied on the last capacity slot where the item quantity is being packed. This would allow carrier service to be aware of the shipment while the product is being prepared in parallel.

Since every items may have different shipping notification time, the system supports levels of overrides by item and by node-shipping group level.

1. Item: Configure the minNotificationTime attribute via the Upsert items API to set the shipping notification time at the item level. For more information, see Catalog upsert item API.
2. Node-Shipping Group: The shipping notification calendar settings enables the time to be set at the shipping SLA level for individual node as not all location will have the same notification time. For more information, see Define or update a shipping notification calendar API.
   Note: By default if neither setting is defined, then shipping notification is immediate or zero hour.

Example 1

If a courier service or ad-hoc delivery service provider requires 2 hours of shipping notification time, and the item fulfillment process begins at 2pm at a node, then the earliest time the item can be picked up by the delivery service is 4pm.

Example 2

If the item is for food delivery, the shipping notification can be as little as 15min notification. For items that requires longer preparation time, you can set a longer shipping notification at the item level if there is already a value set at node-shipping group default.

Example 3

A furniture item may have a shipping notification time of 6 hours at the item level as it requires additional equipment for delivery.

When delivery date is being evaluated by the promising service, the shipping notification time begins at the last capacity slot of each valid shipment. In all cases the service will attempt to minimize the shipping effort by reducing number of shipment where applicable.

In the case when inventory is non-continuous that may involve expiry, then the service may break out to multiple shipments.

To understand how defining shipping notification time works in a real-time e-commerce delivery scenario, see Scenario: Shipping notification time for e-Commerce delivery via carrier service.

You can define the minimum shipping notification time for the particular nodes by using the Order Hub UI. For more information, see Configuring shipping notification time.