If you make products to order — cakes, flowers, meal kits, furniture — "when will it arrive?" is the first question every customer asks. Shopify doesn't let shoppers choose a delivery date out of the box, so orders pile onto days you can't actually fulfill. This guide shows how to add a delivery date and time-slot picker to your Shopify product and cart pages in a few minutes, with no code — and how to cap each day so you never overbook.
Why Shopify needs a delivery date picker
Shopify is built to be "always open." That's great for demand, but not for fulfillment: a bakery that can decorate 50 cakes a day still accepts 120 orders for Saturday, and someone ends up disappointed. A delivery date picker moves the decision to the moment of purchase — the customer tells you when they want it, and you decide which days and how many slots are available.
In markets like Japan, choosing a delivery date and a time window is a standard consumer expectation, normalized by carriers and marketplaces. Meeting it is table stakes; controlling your own capacity while you do is the advantage.
What a good delivery date picker does
More than show a calendar. Look for:
- Date and time-slot selection — a delivery window (e.g. 14:00–16:00) alongside the date.
- Per item or per order — different line items can carry different dates when you need it.
- Delivery rules — lead time, an order cutoff, selectable weekdays, and a booking horizon.
- Capacity limits — caps per date and per slot, so windows can sell out.
- Checkout enforcement — a server-side check that a valid, available date was chosen (so Shop Pay and express checkouts can't bypass it).
OrderRules does all of this on the Advanced plan, using the same Shopify Functions checkout enforcement it already uses for order limits and store hours.
Step 1 — Install OrderRules and open the Advanced plan
Install OrderRules from the Shopify App Store, open the app, and upgrade to Advanced from Settings → Plan. Delivery features are Advanced-only, and a 14-day free trial applies. Permissions for locations, orders, and fulfillment are requested only when you enable delivery — never at install.
Step 2 — Add the theme app block to product & cart
The storefront picker is a theme app block, so it lives inside your theme with no code.
- Go to Online Store → Themes → Customize.
- On a product template, choose Add block in the main area and pick OrderRules — Delivery date under App blocks.
- Repeat on the Cart template (most themes auto-detect the cart drawer).
- Save.
Full detail: Set up the delivery date picker.
Step 3 — Set your delivery rules
Create an availability rule with lead time (earliest a customer can request), a cutoff (orders after, say, 14:00 roll to the next day), delivery weekdays, and a horizon (how far ahead they can book). Scope it to all products or narrow it to a product, collection, tag, or country. See Availability rules.
Step 4 — Add time slots and capacity limits
Add windows like 10:00–12:00 and 14:00–16:00, and set a capacity per date and per slot. Full slots grey out live, and booking is atomic, so two shoppers can't grab the last slot at once — no overbooking. A cancellation releases the slot automatically. See capacity limits.
Step 5 — Blackout dates and holidays
Block days you can't deliver, with an optional reason — or use one-click "copy store holidays" to import the closed dates you already maintain in Shopify. See blackout dates & holidays.
Step 6 — Test at checkout
Place a test order. The OrderRules Shopify Function blocks any missing, sold-out, or blacked-out selection at checkout, and the order is auto-tagged delivery:YYYY-MM-DD and slot:HHMM-HHMM so you can build daily picking lists from Shopify order search.
Beyond the picker: pickup, estimated delivery, and carrier CSV
Once dates are live, the rest of the delivery suite builds on the same rules:
- Scheduled in-store pickup — pickup dates and slots across multiple locations.
- Estimated delivery date — an "Arrives Jul 10 – Jul 11" estimate on product pages, holiday-aware.
- Japanese carrier CSV export — hand shipments to Yamato, Sagawa, or Japan Post in their official layouts.
The bigger picture
A delivery date picker isn't a bolt-on — it's the other half of controlling capacity. OrderRules already governs when customers can order (store hours, daily/weekly/monthly caps, per-customer limits); delivery dates govern when you deliver. Same app, same checkout enforcement. More on that in Order limits + delivery scheduling: why they belong in one app.
Ready to try it? See the Delivery Dates feature or start a free 14-day trial.