Weekend Delivery Playbook: Mastering Weekend Deliveries with Flexible Strategies

Building your weekend delivery strategies

Weekends offer both a challenge and an opportunity for retailers, with customer expectations for fast, reliable service extending across the entire week.

Convenience ranks as the top reason for online purchases, with consumers under 49 particularly willing to pay more for products that make life easier. Close behind are Free and Fast Delivery, which consistently rank among the top drivers of online shopping behaviour—and their importance is only growing.

It’s no surprise then, that over 25% of all deliveries in Sherpa’s last-mile network happen on the weekend. This makes mastering weekend sales strategies essential for capturing your customer’s attention and share of wallet.

So...
1) If you’re not offering weekend delivery, you’re missing out on a key selling window.
2) If you are, you must offer flexible delivery slots to be well-positioned to unlock new growth opportunities.

To truly succeed, you’ll need to understand the unique expectations of customers shopping on Saturdays and Sundays, particularly when driven by promotions or last-minute purchases.

Here’s how to build a weekend delivery strategy that maximises efficiency, keeps pick-and-pack operations smooth, and boosts sales through targeted promotions.

Why Weekends Contribute to Your Whole Week's Success

Here’s how weekend deliveries fit into your broader strategy:

• Saturday Sales Surge: Many consumers use Saturdays to finalise their shopping from the week. One quarter (24 per cent) of Aussies said they did most of their online shopping on a Saturday*. Whether it’s fulfilling last-minute orders from Friday promotions or engaging customers with weekend flash sales, ensuring a quick and efficient Saturday delivery option helps you meet demand and close more sales.

• Sunday Prep: Sundays tend to be about preparing for the upcoming week, and many customers expect to receive their items the same day. Offering Sunday delivery can be the difference between capturing or losing those end-of-week orders.

Here are strategies to throw into your weekend delivery ops mix:  

1. The Power of Flexible Delivery Slots vs. All-Day Availability

One key decision merchants must make is whether to offer all-day delivery or structured delivery slots. Each approach has its benefits, and the right strategy depends on weekend demand, customer expectations, and operational capabilities.

• Flexible Time Slots: By offering 3 or 5-hour delivery windows, you can give customers the flexibility they want while keeping your operations efficient. This gives you time to group orders and packs before sending jobs through on Sherpa’s Delivery Slots services - 2 hours or 4 hours, and the greatest chance for Sherpa's tech to bundle orders into delivery runs for the best rates and more optimised driver routes.

• All-Day Availability: Alternatively, offering Next-Day or same-day delivery across the entire weekend day can work perfectly for customers hanging out at home. Maintaining a consistent 'Ready At' time can put your pick-and-pack operations in a strong position. By bundling your jobs for Hyperbathcing with Sherpa , you can streamline processes and handle higher volumes seamlessly, even with real-time orders.

How to Choose:

• Weekday vs. Weekend Behavior: Customers may prefer scheduled slots during the busy workweek but expect all-day delivery on weekends. Understanding how your customer base behaves on different days can guide your approach.
• Operational Capacity: Offering delivery slots makes it easier to streamline your pick-and-pack process with specific times to focus on. All-day availability requires more dynamic handling but caters to customers’ last-minute needs.

2. Preparing Your Weekend Operations

Getting your weekend deliveries right starts with good preparation throughout the week. By the time Friday comes around, you’ll want your pick-and-pack systems ready for action. Here’s how to stay ahead:

• Optimising Your Pick-and-Pack for Slots: When you offer time slots, use the days leading up to the weekend to stage your inventory and pre-pack popular items based on forecasted demand. This not only speeds up packing times but ensures you’re ready to move as soon as an order comes in.

• Bulk Upload for Weekend Orders: Maximise efficiency by bulk uploading orders late Friday or early Saturday morning. Sherpa’s bulk upload feature helps you organise and prepare your deliveries in one go, ensuring drivers are ready to hit the road on time. Planning your dispatches for optimal delivery windows allows for smooth operations and a better customer experience.

3. Using Promotions to Drive Weekend Sales

Weekends and weekend lead in days are prime time for promotions, but successful promotions require seamless delivery execution. By aligning your promotions with your delivery capacity, you can turn weekend shoppers into loyal customers:

• Targeted Flash Sales: Whether you’re running a Saturday morning flash sale or offering Sunday discounts, make sure your delivery options support the surge in demand. Flexible delivery slots allow you to capture more orders while keeping operations efficient, ensuring you never miss out on a sales opportunity.

• Use Delivery Options as a Selling Point: Promote your weekend delivery slots directly to customers. Offering precise delivery windows can be an incentive for customers to shop during your weekend promotions, knowing they’ll receive their items exactly when they want them.

4. Real-Time Order Management and Support

As your weekend delivery operations ramp up, managing orders in real time is crucial for keeping everything on track. The right tools make all the difference:

• Live Monitoring with Sherpa: Stay ahead of your deliveries with live tracking. You can monitor drivers’ progress, adjust routes as needed, and ensure that each order reaches its destination on time. Sherpa’s dashboard gives you full visibility over your weekend operations.

• Customer Communication: Provide live updates to keep your customers informed. Proactively communication reduces inquiries and builds trust whether they’ve chosen a delivery slot or expect all-day delivery.

• Customer Support Availability: Sherpa’s support team can back you up during the busiest weekend hours. If a delivery needs rerouting or a last-minute change, real-time troubleshooting ensures minimal disruption and high customer satisfaction.

Weekends aren’t just a time to catch up—they’re a chance to leap ahead. With the right mix of flexibility, efficiency, and smart delivery strategies, you can turn every Saturday and Sunday into high-growth opportunities. By mastering weekend logistics, you’ll stay ahead of customer expectations, capture more sales, and turn last-minute orders into lasting loyalty. The weekend is yours to win—are you ready?

* The Australian and New Zealand Ecommerce Report 2024