Processing time and ship-by dates

Your processing time is how many business days you need to make, pack and send an order. Plukio uses it to give every order a ship-by date, which you and the buyer both see.

Setting your processing time

Set your shop's time on the Shipping page, from 1 to 20 business days. It starts at 3. A product that takes longer, or less, can have its own time in the product editor's Shipping card.

How the date is worked out

• Business days are Monday to Friday. Holidays count as business days.
• Counting starts the first business day after the buyer pays. An order paid on Friday with 3 business days ships by Wednesday, and so does one paid on the weekend.
• An order with more than one product uses the longest time among them.
• Days follow UTC, not your own time zone, so the day can turn over in your evening.

The date is fixed when the order is paid. Changing your processing time later, or pausing your shop, never moves the date of an order you already have. Orders of only digital downloads have no ship-by date.

Your orders queue

On Orders, To ship is sorted by ship-by date, earliest first, in groups: Late, Due today, Due soon and Later. A late order shows how many days late it is, and the top of the page counts your late orders.

Reminders before the date

We send you a reminder by email, and an alert in the Plukio app:

• Ships tomorrow, on the business day before the date (on Friday for an order due Monday);
• Due today, on the date itself.

You can turn these two off in Settings, under Emails, then Orders: switch off Ship-by reminders.

When an order is late

An order is late once its ship-by date has passed and you haven't marked it shipped. Then:

• you get This order is late the first day after the date, and Still not shipped three business days after it;
• the buyer gets one email, Your order hasn't shipped yet, and their order page says it was due and hasn't shipped.

The late reminders always arrive, even with ship-by reminders turned off. A paused shop gets every reminder too, because its orders still need to ship.

If you can't ship on time, message the buyer from the order with a new date. If it can't ship at all, refund it from the order. See Refunds and restocking.

Once the date has passed, the buyer can also ask for help from their order. You then have 48 hours to sort it out before they can ask Plukio to step in. See When a buyer asks for help.