An order will be marked as shipped late if you ship it after its expected ship date. For most orders, the expected ship date is calculated using your lead time in effect at the time the order was placed. Changing your shop's lead time won't change the expected ship date for orders already in progress.
To view your Late shipments rate, go to the Customer service tab nested under the Analytics page in your brand portal.
How is the Late shipments rate calculated?
The Late shipments rate shown on your Customer service analytics page reflects how many of your orders from the past 90 days were shipped after the expected ship date or the scheduled ship date.
This is a different metric from the Late shipments rate used for Top Shop qualification. The Top Shop Late shipments rate applies only to brands based in North America and is calculated using a fixed quarterly period.
For most orders, the expected ship date is calculated using your lead time in effect at the time the order was placed. Your lead time excludes weekends and regional holidays — expected ship dates are calculated by adding your lead time in business days to the date the order was sent to you. Changing your shop's lead time won't change the expected ship date for orders already in progress.
This differs from the estimated ship date, which is the date you enter when accepting the order — sometimes labeled committed to shipping by on the order details page in your brand portal.
The estimated ship date isn't used in the late shipments calculation; its purpose is to inform retailers when you plan to ship their order. You can update the estimated ship date as many times as needed, and the retailer receives an email notification each time it changes. However, updating the estimated ship date doesn't change the expected ship date or scheduled ship date. The order will still be marked as shipped late if it ships after the expected ship date or scheduled ship date.
The order must be scanned into transit by the shipping carrier on or before the expected ship date, or the scheduled ship date for scheduled orders.
What order types are excluded from the Late shipments rate?
The following order types are excluded from the Late shipments rate:
- Preorders
- Orders including products with customization requests
If a customized product is added to an order after it was placed, the order isn't excluded — it will still count toward your Late shipments rate.
How is the expected ship date determined for different order types?
Orders that are available-to-ship when they're placed are considered late if the shipping carrier scans the package(s) into transit after the expected ship date.
Your lead time excludes weekends and regional holidays — expected ship dates are calculated by adding your lead time in business days to the date the order was sent to you.
If an order has multiple packages, the ship date is recorded based on the last package the carrier scans, not the first. The order isn't considered shipped until every package for the order has been scanned by the shipping carrier.
The following order types are all considered scheduled orders, meaning their expected ship date is a scheduled date rather than one calculated using your shop's lead time:
- Retailer-scheduled orders — the ship date is set by the retailer when they place the order. If you'd like to disable retailers' ability to select a scheduled ship date, you can do so from the Shop settings page in your brand portal.
- Split orders — when you separate specific products from an order into a new order, the ship date set at the time of the split becomes that new order's scheduled ship date. You can change the scheduled ship date for a split order one time after it's created — unlike other scheduled order types, this updated date becomes the new expected ship date.
- Backorders — the ship date is set when you mark an item out of stock. For backorders, the scheduled ship date is also called the restock date.
Scheduled orders must ship on or before the scheduled ship date, or they will be marked as shipped late.
What if I change my shop's lead time?
Changing your shop's lead time won't change the expected ship date for orders already in progress. Your new lead time will apply to orders placed after the change.
Can changing an order's estimated ship date still result in it being marked late?
Yes. Whether an order is marked as shipped late depends only on the expected ship date (or the scheduled ship date for scheduled orders) — not the estimated ship date.
If the order ships on or before the expected ship date or scheduled ship date, it won't be marked late; if it ships after that date, it will be marked late, regardless of what the estimated ship date was updated to.
What if an order was incorrectly included in my Late shipments rate?
If you believe an order was shipped within your lead time but is still showing as late, let us know so we can review it with you.