Expedited Shipping Explained: How It Works + Compares with Traditional & Standard Shipping

Standard. Priority. Expedited. Express. Two-day. Next-day. Same-day. Now more than ever, ecommerce shipping options can seem as endless as the products available to online shoppers. One thing all shoppers can agree on, however, is that faster shipping is better.

One of the faster options ecommerce retailers can use to speed up shipping to customers is expedited delivery. Here’s what online businesses should know about this shipping option.

What is expedited shipping?

Trucks with expedited goods travel from order pickup to delivery with no stops in between to fulfill expedited shipping demands. What constitutes “expedited shipping” differs by carrier, but it tends to fall between overnight and 2-day shipping for most domestic deliveries.

How fast is expedited shipping compared to other fulfillment options?

Delivery methods and logistics costs vary depending on margins, ecommerce fulfillment strategy and how you handle logistics, customer locations, and more. One online store’s expedited shipping timeline might be standard to another. Here is how expedited services compare to other shipping and delivery times.

Expedited shipping vs. standard shipping

Standard delivery services are usually the cheapest shipping option for both online stores and their customers. Depending on the fulfillment provider and carrier used, standard shipping within the US means between three and seven business days from the time the order is dispatched to the time it arrives on the customer’s doorstep.

Some shipping companies boast two-day delivery as their standard, while others make it clear that standard delivery means you’ll need to wait a little while to receive your order. Stores in the latter category generally offer an expedited delivery alternative, such as 2-day or next-day delivery, for customers who need their orders sooner.

It’s important to note that most retailers calculate shipping time based on when the order is shipped, not when it’s placed. This means that if an order is placed with 2-day shipping selected, those two days don’t necessarily include order processing time — especially if that time falls on a weekend or holiday. 

Expedited shipping services vs. express shipping

Depending on the retailer and carriers involved, expedited shipping and express shipping can have a variety of meanings and can sometimes be used interchangeably. In general, when both express and expedited shipping options are offered, express shipping is faster, often meaning 2-day or next-day delivery, while expedited just means “faster than standard.” 

Two-day (or next-day) shipping

For some retailers, expedited orders are considered premium shipping options, shipped with a 2- or next-day turnaround time, while for others, 2-day delivery is standard. Like all shipping options, the way these terms are positioned varies from store to store.

Thanks to ecommerce giants like Amazon, most online shoppers now expect 2-day shipping – meaning that 2-day shipping is tablestakes for ecommerce stores, whether as a standard option, a special perk, or something in between. 

Why online stores should offer expedited delivery

Here are a few of the top advantages of offering expedited delivery options on your ecommerce store.

1. Reduce cart abandonment

It’s actually quite common for customers to abandon their cart because of unsatisfactory delivery options. When your customers check out, are there a variety of shipping options available, including affordable and fast options?

Offering an affordable expedited delivery option can help prevent shopping cart abandonment and increase conversions for your online store.

2. Meet customer expectations around ship time

Today’s customers expect fast, affordable shipping everywhere they shop online with a fast time frame that they can rely on. With big-box ecommerce companies offering two-day shipping and free shipping options, not offering expedited delivery options will hurt your conversion rates.

When you offer 2-day shipping, you empower your brand to compete with larger marketplaces, fulfill customers’ expectations, and subsequently increase the likelihood that shoppers will convert.  

“Reducing lead times through ShipBob’s strategic inventory distribution is super important, because we are basically competing against Amazon. We want our website to be the go-to purchasing platform for customers, and we don’t want shipping to be a reason why somebody might not make that choice.

By distributing inventory across 3 ShipBob fulfillment centers through their Inventory Placement Program, our customers are getting their orders in a couple days. It’s very comparable to what customers been trained to expect with Amazon.”

Tyler McCann, Co-Founder of Taste Salud 

3. Build customer loyalty

It is far more cost effective for businesses to retain a current customer than to win a new one. When customers get their delivery fast and on time, they may be more likely to purchase from you again in the future.

On the other hand, shoppers are far less likely to never shop with a retailer again following a negative delivery experience, and negative reviews based on transit times or shipping charges are likely to dissuade would-be buyers.

Which shipping carriers offer expedited shipping?

Just as different online stores define expedited shipping and delivery in different ways, each carrier has its own version of fast and faster shipping options.

If you aren’t sure which carrier’s expedited shipping options are the right choice for you, finding a third-party logistics (3PL) provider to help you navigate and select the right shipping methods can be invaluable.

USPS expedited shipping

One popular USPS mail type is their expedited shipping option called Priority Mail Express. They describe it as their “fastest domestic service.” Packages under 70 pounds ship overnight through Priority Mail Express starting at $31.40. Priority Mail Express includes things like USPS tracking with optional add-ons like a certificate of mailing and sign-on-delivery.

UPS expedited shipping

For domestic deliveries, UPS offers a variety of expedited services and shipping options, including same-, next-, two-, and three-day shipping guarantees. All of these options are faster than the standard UPS Ground option which can take up to five business to deliver.

For international shipments, UPS Worldwide Expedited service offers fast, guaranteed deliveries to over 220 countries for small packages.

FedEx expedited shipping

FedEx has several ways to ship expedited orders that depend on the package’s size, destination, and urgency. These include FedEx SameDay®, FedEx Express Saver® (U.S.), and FedEx 2Day A.M.®, just to name a few.

How much does expedited shipping cost?

The extra cost of expedited services varies based on the carrier, destination, and weight.

Domestic expedited shipping rates by carrier 

Here are some sample comparisons of domestic expedited shipping rates from some of the most popular US carriers:

Carrier & Shipping Option	Price
USPS Priority Mail Express	$31.40
UPS 2nd Day Air A.M.®	$26.62
FedEx 2 Day	$25.23

Overnight shipping rates by carrier 

Here are some sample comparisons based on overnight delivery*:

Carrier & Shipping Option	Price
UPS Next Day Air® Early (delivery by 8:00 AM next day)	$72.42
FedEx First Overnight®	$73.31

*These are for illustration purposes only. Shipping costs will vary based on carrier, seasonality, dimensional weight, package weight, products shipped, and a variety of other factors.

If you’re looking to streamline expedited shipping costs and save time on the complete order fulfillment process, consider partnering with a 3PL.

How to offer expedited delivery without killing your margins

Shipping expedited orders can be expensive — but it actually doesn’t have to be. Here are some ways to keep shipping fast and affordable.

Require a minimum spend threshold

One way to offer expedited shipping while staying profitable is by requiring a minimum spend threshold hat shoppers must meet in order to qualify for 2-day shipping — especially if you intend to offer free expedited delivery. For this option to make sense, the amount of money a customer spends to qualify for expedited shipping must be greater than the average order value (AOV). Requiring a minimum spend to qualify for free expedited shipping helps offset the cost of faster shipping, and can even help increase the AOV of sales.

“When people come to our site, that’s when we see larger orders. Especially because we have a free shipping threshold. Our average cart value is about $106, and our average order size can be high – we recently had an order come through that had 58 items in it.  All that said, the large items really bogged down our shipping department. It was challenging for us to manage those large orders efficiently from our warehouse. We’re thankful for our partnership with ShipBob because they can take those high-volume orders on.”

John Lewis, President and COO of Vision Investments (parent company of AutoGeek)   

Distribute inventory to ship from multiple fulfillment centers

Because of how shipping zones work, the less distance a package has to travel, the faster and less expensive it will be to ship. By distributing inventory to multiple fulfillment centers near your customers, you can reach more customers quickly with ground shipping.

This enables you to offer 2-day shipping without necessarily using (and paying for) a carrier’s premium expedited shipping options, which helps you save money while delighting customers and reducing cart abandonment.

“Distributing inventory across the world with ShipBob drastically cut our transit times. When we were only shipping from our Miami, FL warehouse, it would take us 25 days to deliver an order to a customer in the EU, while using ShipBob’s UK fulfillment center, it takes only 3 days. That’s an 88% reduction in shipping time for those international customers!”

Rachel Tannenholz, President of Aroma360 

Outsource fulfillment to a fulfillment partner

Outsourcing shipping and fulfillment to a professional fulfillment provider or 3PL can help ecommerce businesses leverage shipping options, discounts, and technology not available to those who do fulfillment in-house.

ShipBob is an expert supply chain and fulfillment partner that helps ecommerce merchants meet customer expectations around expedited orders and grow their business.

When an order is assigned to our 2-Day Express shipping option, ShipBob’s fulfillment software automatically ensures that it is given priority and bypasses standard shipping. Our fulfillment team will then get it shipped quickly and efficiently.

Merchants can also distribute their inventory to multiple of ShipBob’s dozens of global fulfillment centers through our Inventory Placement Program to place inventory closer to their end customers and further compete by reducing shipping costs and speed. This lets merchants offer their customers affordable expedited shipping cost-effectively, even as they continue to scale. 

To learn more about how ShipBob can enable cost-effective expedited shipping for your brand, click the button below to get in touch.  

Learn more about fast shipping

Fast shipping is the new normal. To help you learn even more about offering faster, more affordable delivery options to your customers, we created a guide on how to distribute your inventory.

Download the guide for free and dive deep into:

• What a distributed inventory model is
• How to leverage a fulfillment partner to achieve nationwide 2-day shipping
• The most strategic locations for fulfillment centers
• How shipping zones work

Ready to start meeting expectations around shipping speeds? Download the guide below.

Expedited shipping FAQs

Here are answers to some of the most common questions about expedited shipping.