• Important Note on Shipping 💥
USPS and all delivery services get backed up this time of year and that is especially true in 2020, with more people buying online due to the pandemic.
If the default shipping option on your site is set to Media Mail, your customers might experience delays in not only received packages, but getting updates from the postal service (e.g. they get a notification that a label has been created, but no further updates for days or weeks).
This is because Media Mail packages are the lowest priority items for USPS. Unfortunately, due to the volume of mail and circumstances surrounding the pandemic, delays are generally expected for ALL items right now, but especially those going out via Media Mail. These Media Mail packages might sit for a while before they are processed or only scanned at the destination hub. Please see the below chart from the USPS for information on ship times
To help ensure your customers received items purchased from AEC through your sites promptly, we recommend sending all items via USPS First Class/Priority Mail.
**We took time yesterday and ensured that First Class/Priority Mail is set up as an option on all Broadtime sites if you didn’t already have it set up.**
We set the default pricing to $8.25 + a $1.50 vinyl surcharge to ensure hard costs are covered for shipping any vinyl to customers from AEC. Shipping one vinyl record via First Class/Priority is $9.62 with handling.
We highly recommend that you encourage customers to choose the First Class/Priority Mail option to help increase the chances their items arrive on time. You may want to consider adding a note to your checkout page informing customers that selecting First Class/Priority Mail greatly increases the likelihood their shipment arrives in time for the holidays. (under Site Settings - > e-commerce -> checkout disclaimer)
If you would like to disable Media Mail and ensure First Class/Priority is the only option, you can make Media Mail only available for a high-dollar amount, say $500 or greater.
We don’t want to delete Media Mail as an option entirely, as it impacts past orders but that method will keep it greyed out as an option.
There are always some hiccups with shipping this time of year, but we want to do everything possible to help you serve your customers well and ensure they have happy holidays with new products from your store.
We're always here to help or answer any questions you may have. As a reminder, the quickest way to get a response from us to emailing support@broadtime.com
Remember this email from last week:
