Ordering from Regional and Remote Australia: Timing Your Delivery

Ordering online works anywhere in Australia, but delivery time does not. A parcel going across town in a capital city and a parcel going to a station town in the Northern Territory leave the same warehouse on the same day and arrive days apart. If you live outside a major city, a little planning stops that gap from becoming a problem.

Why distance adds days

A parcel's journey has three legs: from us to the courier's network, across the country between sorting facilities, and from the nearest depot to your door. The first leg is the same for everyone. The other two are where regional deliveries take longer:

• Linehaul. Parcels travel between capital-city facilities on scheduled trucks and flights. Perth, Darwin and Hobart are further from the eastern hubs, and some freight to them travels by road or sea, not air.
• Fewer runs. A regional depot may receive freight once a day, and a remote one a few times a week. A parcel that just misses a scheduled run waits for the next one.
• Last-mile distance. Rural delivery runs cover long distances, so some addresses are only visited on certain days.
• Weather and roads. Wet-season flooding in the north, bushfires and road closures can pause freight to whole regions.

Our delivery estimates by state

Every order is dispatched within one business day of payment being confirmed. After that, our estimates for transit are:

• New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT: 2–5 business days
• Queensland: 2–6 business days
• South Australia: 3–6 business days
• Western Australia and Tasmania: 4–7 business days
• Northern Territory: 5–8 business days

The shorter end of each range is typical for capital cities; the longer end is for regional and remote addresses. These are estimates in business days, so weekends and public holidays are extra.

Time your order around the delivery window

The simplest rule: order when what you have left will last longer than the delivery window, plus a buffer.

Work it out like this:

1. Take the long end of your state's estimate. For WA, that is 7 business days.
2. Add a day for dispatch, and a few days for payment, weekends and the unexpected. Call it about two weeks for WA.
3. When your remaining supply drops to around that much, place the next order.

Our supply planning guide shows how to estimate how long your current supply will last.

Order a little more, less often

For regional customers, fewer and larger orders usually work better than frequent small ones. Each order carries the same transit time, and the $250 minimum means a larger order is not much of a stretch. Orders from $300 also ship free.

Watch the calendar

Freight networks slow down around Christmas and New Year, Easter, and long weekends, and remote services may not run at all on public holidays. If one of those falls inside your delivery window, order earlier than usual.

Keep reading

• Delivery information for every state
• Tracking statuses explained
• Avoiding missed deliveries

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