Should the cart show a delivery estimate?
Yes, as early as you can produce one. Delivery timing is a purchase criterion, not a post-purchase detail, and a buyer who cannot find it either leaves to check elsewhere or completes the order carrying an assumption you will later disappoint.
Surinder Thakur · AI Product Designer
Founder of ProUXUpdated
Why this works
For many purchases the arrival date is part of the decision. Something needed for a specific occasion is worth buying only if it arrives in time, and a store that does not say when creates a question the buyer must resolve somewhere else. Often they resolve it by finding a store that answers it.
A range is better than silence. "Arrives in three to five working days" lets someone decide; "shipping calculated at checkout" does not. Even an estimate you qualify is more useful than nothing, because the buyer is comparing against alternatives that do state a date.
Stating it early also protects you afterwards. An expectation set at the cart is one you agreed to; an expectation the buyer invented is one you will be judged against without knowing it existed.
When this changes
If your delivery time varies enormously by destination, show the estimate after the postcode rather than before, and say that is why. If you cannot estimate at all, say what determines it, so the buyer knows the answer is coming rather than missing.
AI Product Designer
19 years designing products, mobile first, grounded in UX psychology.
Founder of ProUX.
- NN/g: NN/g UX Certification, Nielsen Norman Group
- HFI CUA: HFI Certified Usability Analyst, Human Factors International
- HFI CDPA: HFI Certified Digital Persuasion Analyst, Human Factors International