Delivery Options: Send Now, Send Later, On Delivery
How Send Now, Send Later and On Delivery work, what triggers each one, the tracking fallback, and how to hide an option you don't want to offer.
Written By Giftnote Team
Last updated 8 days 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
When a customer adds a gift message through the widget, they choose one of three delivery timing options:
All three options deliver the gift message by email, SMS, or both, depending on what the customer entered in the widget.
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 by 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. The message is still delivered at the time the customer chose; only the display is wrong. 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 personalised 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) fulfil 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 recognised, 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 fulfilment workflow always includes a tracking number when marking orders as shipped.
On Fulfilment — a fourth option, in development
On Fulfilment will fire the message when a tracking number is added to the order, earlier than On Delivery, and include the tracking link. It is not available yet.
If you ship perishables, alcohol or frozen goods and want recipients notified at shipment rather than delivery, contact support about early access.
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 by 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 certain networks — including Shopify Fulfillment Network — may not be recognised or may need a workaround. If you use one of these, the safest approach is to mark the order as "Delivered" manually in Shopify, which triggers the gift message. Contact support if you're unsure whether your carrier is supported.
About 5% of tracked orders encounter errors (missing carrier assignment or an unrecognised 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 reprocess it manually.
Customers sometimes choose Send Now when they meant Send Later. Once a Send Now message fires, the recipient email cannot be changed. If this happens often on your store, you can hide the Send Now option — see below.
The gift message character limit is 210 characters across all delivery options. It applies to Send Now, Send Later and On Delivery equally — an SMS-length constraint that keeps messages consistent across email and SMS.
Hide a delivery timing option you don't want to offer
There is no native toggle to show or hide individual delivery timing options. A CSS rule can hide any option from the widget — for example, removing Send Now so customers can only choose Send Later or On Delivery.
To request this:
Email support@giftnote.com and say which option you'd like hidden.
We'll apply the CSS rule to your theme's Giftnote app embed settings.
You'll see the change live within one business day.
If you're comfortable editing CSS yourself, add the rule directly in Shopify Admin → Online Store → Themes → Customize → App Embeds → Giftnote Control Panel. Contact support for the exact snippet for your store.
⚠️ Custom CSS can be overwritten by Giftnote platform updates. If a hidden option reappears after an update, re-apply the CSS or contact us to reapply it. Keep a copy of any custom CSS you've added outside Shopify.