A great delivery experience gives customers a real choice at checkout, keeps them informed after they buy, and makes returns straightforward. It also depends on the operation keeping its delivery promise when volumes peak, and on the parcel arriving on the first attempt. In DHL's 2026 survey of 29,000 online shoppers across 29 countries, 67% said they had abandoned a cart because of the delivery offering.
In this blog:
- Show a real choice of delivery options at checkout
- Keep the delivery promise when volume peaks
- Make the delivery succeed on the first attempt
- Keep in touch in your own brand
- Make returns easy enough to finish in minutes
Show a real choice of delivery options at checkout
The delivery experience starts on the checkout page, where the customer decides whether the delivery suits them before they decide whether to buy. Some shoppers want the parcel tomorrow; others want the cheapest option or the one they can collect on the way home. A single "standard delivery, 3 to 5 days" line serves none of those preferences well, and it hides the information the customer is looking for: when will it arrive, where will it be delivered, and what will it cost?
Choice works when the options are distinct, clearly badged, and priced honestly. Show an estimated delivery date per option rather than a transit range, name the carrier where that helps the customer decide, and let the customer pick the pickup point on a map instead of assigning one. An estimated date only helps if the operation can keep it. So the date has to come from the carrier's real cut-off, the transit time for that option, and the warehouse's own handling time, not from a marketing default. The ecommerce team sets the rules in the checkout tool: which options appear for each basket, postcode and cut-off time, and what each option costs.
Flying Tiger Copenhagen made that change with nShift Checkout. Its customers had been assigned a pickup point automatically and only learned which one after the order had shipped. Once they could select their preferred pickup point at checkout, the retailer saw a 20% increase in conversions. In the words of Sander van Enschot, Head of Digital Operations: "Improvements made in delivery choice at the checkout have been a key success factor in increasing conversion and improving the customer experience."
Keep the delivery promise when volume peaks
Peak is when a delivery promise gets tested. Weaknesses show up quickly: a carrier reaches capacity, the warehouse cannot produce labels fast enough, or the shipping cut-off does not match the carrier's collection time. To the customer, all of it shows up as one thing, a missed date.
Three things help protect the promise. Carrier alternatives on the service levels the business sells most of, so volume can move when one network fills. A system that can switch carriers or add one without a development project, because peak is the wrong moment to start an integration. Set the warehouse cut-off from the carrier's real collection time, because a next-day promise made after the van has left is a missed date the operation caused.
Elgiganten, the Nordic electronics retailer, runs its automated warehouse on nShift Ship with labels and EDI messages generated automatically for its preferred carriers. Robert Johansson, IT and Project Manager, put it this way: "With the world's largest carrier library available in nShift, we can easily select the carriers that we need." The warehouse can now ship up to 5 million parcels a year. JYSK, which opens about 150 new stores a year, chose its shipping platform on the same basis: the ability to onboard new carriers quickly as it expanded into Central and Eastern Europe.
Make the delivery succeed on the first attempt
A failed delivery attempt usually means more work on the last leg: the parcel goes back to the depot, the customer gets a card or a message, support often gets a contact, and the delivery is attempted again or diverted to a pickup point. The customer, meanwhile, waited at home for nothing.
Size and distance are two practical constraints on whether pickup is the right option. Bulky and heavy items, and anything over a locker's size limit, usually go to the door, and a shopper with no parcel shop within walking distance is unlikely to use one either. For many smaller parcels, an out-of-home option removes the need for the customer to be at home at all. Parcel shops, lockers, and the retailer's own stores hold the parcel until it is collected, so there is no failed home-delivery attempt to redo. The demand is already there: 46% of regular European online shoppers favor out-of-home delivery options (Geopost E-Shopper Barometer, 2025), and DHL's 2026 research found that almost three in ten shoppers already send deliveries straight to an out-of-home location. Europe had about 646,000 active out-of-home points by 2025 (Last Mile Experts, 2025), so those networks have grown quickly, and the next step is making the options that reach your own customers visible and easy to select at checkout.
For home deliveries, the data the carrier receives is the part the retailer controls: a complete address, a contact number the carrier can use, a safe-place instruction, and, where the carrier supports it, a delivery window the customer can change from the tracking page. Our guide to how to improve delivery performance works through each of those levers one at a time.
Keep in touch in your own brand
After the order confirmation, delivery communication often shifts to the carrier and into the carrier's format. That leaves the retailer with little say over what the customer sees, and over how clearly a delay or an exception is explained.
Relevant updates in the retailer's own look and feel close the gap: a shipping confirmation with a working tracking link, a message when the parcel reaches the local depot with the delivery window, a message when the driver is close, and an immediate message on any exception. Each message should tell the customer something new or help them decide what to do next. That test matters more than the number of messages.
ICANIWILL, the Swedish activewear brand, shipped over 400,000 orders a year with a plain warehouse email that pointed customers at the carrier's portal. After moving delivery communication to nShift Track, it cut delivery-related questions from customers by 50% and now sees a 25% click-through rate on its shipping confirmations, against an industry average of around 18%. Pontus Eriksson, Chief Operating Officer, said: "Being able to communicate directly to customers has been a game-changer in terms of handling enquiries relating to orders and getting visibility of the data so that we can continually improve the service we offer."
Make returns easy enough to finish in minutes
For most shoppers the returns policy is part of the buying decision. In IMRG and nShift's April 2026 survey of 1,000 UK consumers, 85.6% said a retailer's returns policy is important when deciding whether to buy online, and 47.4% expect starting a return to take one to three minutes. A return that needs a printed label, a form in the box, and a call to customer service fails that test, and 42.3% of the same shoppers said a poor returns experience would leave them much less inclined to shop with that retailer again.
A digital returns process gives the customer a branded portal where they register the return on their phone, choose a drop-off option, and get a label or a QR code. It also captures the reason for each return, which gives the retailer data it can use to reduce avoidable returns: fit problems point to sizing guidance, damage to packaging, and "not as described" to the product page. The same process can also make exchanges easier to offer. Offered at the moment of the return, 66.1% of consumers would take an exchange instead of a refund.
Hunkemöller replaced printed return labels with a fully digital returns experience on nShift Returns across six European markets and has seen a 15% shift from return-to-warehouse to in-store returns. Fashion retailer Quiz moved to digital, paper-free returns on the same product and anticipates saving 25 to 30% in staff time, largely by reducing repetitive service queries and manual handling.
Where to start
Start at the checkout, and start by counting: how many delivery options a customer actually sees, and what share of orders take an out-of-home option. Flying Tiger Copenhagen saw a 20% increase in conversions after giving customers control over pickup-point selection at checkout. Then take the other four in turn, each with one number to watch: on-time rate through peak, first-attempt success, contacts per order, and the share of returns that become exchanges. For the operational side of the same five tips, read how to ensure timely and accurate deliveries, which pairs each strategy with the survey data behind it.
One platform connects you to 1,000+ carriers across 190+ countries and 70+ pickup networks, so the delivery options, the tracking messages, and the returns all run on the same shipment data. Book a demo to see how nShift Checkout, nShift Track, and nShift Returns fit your delivery flow.
About the author
