Delivery Options: Send Now, Send Later, On Delivery
Learn how Send Now, Send Later, and On Delivery timing options work, including carrier tracking, fallbacks, and gift card differences.
Written By Giftnote Team
Last updated About 3 hours ago
Giftnote gives your customers three choices for when their gift message reaches the recipient. Understanding how each option works — and what triggers it behind the scenes — helps you choose the right defaults for your store and answer customer questions with confidence.
Why this matters
The timing of a gift message directly affects the recipient's experience. A message that arrives at the exact moment the package lands on the doorstep creates a "surprise and delight" moment that drives opens, clicks, and conversions. A message that arrives too early can spoil the surprise. Choosing the right delivery options for your products means happier gifters, impressed recipients, and fewer support requests.
How each option works
Send Now — message fires immediately after purchase
When your customer selects Send Now, the gift message is sent to the recipient the moment the order is placed — before the item ships, before it's even packed.
What the gifter sees: A confirmation email that the gift message has been sent.
What the recipient sees: An email and/or SMS with the gift message, arriving within moments of purchase.
Best for: Digital products, gift cards, or situations where the gifter wants the recipient to know a gift is on the way.
⚠️ Send Now is immediate and irreversible. Once the message fires, the recipient's email address cannot be changed and the message cannot be recalled. If a customer contacts you saying they entered the wrong email, the original message has already been delivered. You can ask Giftnote support to manually resend to a corrected email, but the original send cannot be undone.
Send Later — message fires on a date the gifter chooses
When your customer selects Send Later, they pick a specific future date — a birthday, anniversary, holiday, or any date they choose. Giftnote holds the message and delivers it on that date.
What the gifter sees: A confirmation email showing the scheduled date and the recipient's details.
What the recipient sees: Nothing until the scheduled date, when they receive the gift message via email and/or SMS.
Best for: Birthday gifts, holiday pre-orders, or any time the gifter is purchasing well ahead of the occasion.
Key details:
You can edit or cancel a scheduled message before it sends. In your Giftnote dashboard, open the order detail view and click the Archive button in the top-right corner to cancel a scheduled message. You can also edit the message text or change the scheduled time from the dashboard before it fires.
The recipient's email can be updated on a scheduled message before it sends — unlike Send Now.
Scheduled dates use your store's timezone setting. However, the confirmation email the gifter receives currently displays the time in UTC, not your store's local timezone. This can cause confusion if a gifter sees a time that doesn't match what they selected. This is a known issue Giftnote is working to resolve.
On Delivery — message fires when the carrier marks the parcel as delivered
This is Giftnote's signature feature and the option most merchants enable as the default. When your customer selects On Delivery, the gift message is held until the carrier confirms the package has been delivered. The recipient gets the message at the exact moment they receive the physical gift.
What the gifter sees: A confirmation email when the order is placed, and a second notification when the gift message is successfully delivered to the recipient.
What the recipient sees: Nothing until the package arrives. Then — at the moment the carrier scans the parcel as delivered — an email and/or SMS with the personalized gift message.
Best for: Physical products where the surprise matters. This is the option that creates the strongest recipient experience and the highest engagement rates.
How it works behind the scenes:
Your customer places the order and selects On Delivery
You (or your warehouse) fulfill the order in Shopify with a tracking number
Giftnote picks up the tracking number and monitors the carrier's delivery status
When the carrier marks the parcel as "delivered," Giftnote fires the message instantly
Giftnote supports 1,000+ carriers globally through its tracking infrastructure, including Australia Post, FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, Royal Mail, DPD, and many more.
⚠️ On Delivery requires a valid tracking number. If an order is fulfilled without a tracking number, or if the carrier isn't recognized, Giftnote cannot detect delivery. In these cases, a fallback notification is sent to the recipient after 10–12 days. To avoid this, make sure your fulfillment workflow always includes a tracking number when marking orders as shipped.
What about gift cards?
The gift card widget only offers Send Now and Send Later — there is no On Delivery option for gift cards. This is by design: gift cards are digital, so there's no physical package to track. The recipient gets their gift card code via email and/or SMS based on whichever timing option the gifter selects.
Key things to know
On Delivery is the default for most stores — and the one we recommend. It creates the strongest recipient experience and is what sets Giftnote apart from other gifting apps. About 75% of gift messages come through checkout, and On Delivery is the most popular choice among gifters.
If your carrier isn't integrated, On Delivery messages can fail silently. Giftnote supports 1,000+ carriers, but some local same-day couriers and niche fulfillment networks may not be recognized. If you use a carrier that isn't integrated, the safest approach is to manually mark the order as "Delivered" in Shopify, which triggers the gift message. Contact support if you're unsure whether your carrier is supported.
You cannot natively disable the Send Now option. Some merchants prefer to hide Send Now so customers don't accidentally send a message before the gift arrives. There's no built-in toggle for this, but a CSS workaround exists. Go to Shopify Admin → Online Store → Themes → Customize → App Embeds → Giftnote Control Panel, and add custom CSS to hide the Send Now option. Contact support if you'd like help setting this up.
The gift message character limit is 210 characters across all delivery options. This applies to Send Now, Send Later, and On Delivery equally — it's an SMS-length constraint that keeps messages consistent across email and SMS delivery.
About 5% of tracked orders encounter errors (missing carrier assignment or unrecognized tracking number). For these orders, the fallback notification fires after 10–12 days. If you see an order stuck in an error state in your Giftnote dashboard, contact support and we can manually reprocess it.