Dropshipped POD: Holiday Order Deadlines

Holiday Order Deadlines

By Ryan Hogue on February 4, 2019

If you sell niche products that capitalize on big American holidays, you'll want to monitor deadlines so that customers receive their orders before the holiday.

Targeting trending niches such as major American holidays is a common tactic amongst dropshipped print on demand product sellers.

Here's a current best selling Valentines Day 2019 mug that ties the holiday to the news cycle:

One thing to keep in mind when selling these niche products is that customers will expect them to arrive BEFORE the holiday, as they're often either going to be gifted or worn then.

In order to keep your customers happy & return rate low, you should ensure that your order handling time is configured to allow for enough production time to create & ship orders to your customer.

I wrote a post about how to bulk-edit the handling time of your Amazon products that should be easy to follow.

When it's close to the deadline, Amazon will sometimes include additional text such as "Arrives before [HOLIDAY]" to reassure potential buyers.

amazon arrives before christmas displayed on product listing page

Negative feedback and high return rates can result in your account being closed, so this needs to be taken seriously.

Production Partner Fulfillment Deadlines

As of writing this, I'm using three different fulfillment partners to fulfill my dropshipped print on demand orders:

Each company will usually send an email out ahead of the approaching holiday deadlines letting sellers know what the final date for each product is.

I was actually inspired to write this article after receiving an email from Gearbubble about the approaching Valentines Day deadline of Feb. 6th for domestic orders & Feb. 4th for international:

If you have Canada/International orders for V-day, the deadline is Monday, February 4th.

If you have domestic USA orders, the deadline is February 6th on all products.

As long as the orders are received by 11:59pm EST on February 6th, they will be shipped in time for Valentine's Day delivery. Most likely orders that are placed after that date will also arrive on time but anything before 11:59pm EST on the 6th will ship on time for the perfect V-day gift.

Gearbubble is the best about notifying sellers of approaching order deadlines for major holidays, whereas you usually only hear from Printful / Printify if they're going to be experiencing substantial delays due to high order volume.

Make a priority of displaying these dates to your customers - keep your account in good standing - print on demand is a long-term investment that you'll reap the benefits of for years to come!