How to manage Shopify delivery time slots for Valentine's Day and peak days in Bloom?

If you're using Bloom for delivery on your Shopify store, you might need to adjust your time slot settings during busy periods like Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, or Christmas.

In this help article, we'll walk through how to manage customer expectations in the Bloom app, when you can't guarantee specific delivery times during high-volume days.

The common scenario

During peak seasons, many florists, bakeries, and gift shops face the same challenge:

• You want customers to be able to select busy days (like Feb 13th-14th) for delivery
• But you can't guarantee specific timeslots (e.g. 2:00-2:30pm) due to a spike in order volume
• You need one general time window (e.g. "9am-5pm - anytime during business hours") instead of multiple specific timeslots

The challenge:

Bloom's timeslots are configured by day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.), not by specific calendar dates. This means you can't set Feb 13th and 14th to be different from other Thursdays and Fridays in the same month.

How timeslots work in Bloom

When you set up timeslots in Bloom, they apply to days of the week, not individual dates:

• If you create slots for "Friday" they apply to ALL Fridays
• If you create slots for "Saturday," they apply to ALL Fridays

This means if Valentine's Day falls on a Friday (Feb 13th) and Saturday (Feb 14th)*, any time slot changes will also affect:

• The Friday and Saturday BEFORE Valentine's (Feb 6th-7th)
• The Friday and Saturday AFTER Valentine's (Feb 20th-21st)

*Using 2026's Valentine's Day as an example

Two workarounds

Option 1: Change your timeslots immediately

How it works:

• Change your timeslots now to one wide window (e.g. 9am-5pm)
• This affects ALL Fridays and Saturdays in February

Pros:

• All customers ordering for Feb 13th-14th from this point forward will see the one wide timeslot
• No customer service headaches from having customers who ordered from specific timeslots, while others ordering from the one wide timeslot you implemented later on
• This option is more simple and clean

Cons:

• Feb 6th-7th (the week before) and Feb 20th-21st (the week after) will also have the one wide timeslot instead of your usual specific slots

Best for:

Merchants who want to avoid any confusion and are okay with a slightly less precise schedule for the surrounding weeks.

Option 2: Change AFTER the week before

How it works:

• Wait until after Feb 7th to change your timeslots
• Feb 6th-7th keeps your normal 30-minute slots
• Make the change on Feb 12th evening or Feb 13th morning

Pros:

• Feb 6th-7th keeps your regular specific timeslots

Cons:

• Customers who order for Feb 13th-14th BEFORE you make the change will have booked specific times (e.g. "2:00-2:30pm")
• You'll need to contact these customers to manage their expectations: "We can't guarantee your specific timeslot due to increased order volume for Valentine's"
• This will probably give you customer service headaches right before your busiest days

Best for:

Merchants who have very few orders coming in before Feb 7th and really need specific slots for that week.

Our recommendation: Option 1

We typically recommend Bloom merchants to update or change their timeslots as soon as they have decided on their delivery availability.

In this scenario, the minor inconvenience of Feb 6th-7th having a one wide timeslot (9am-5pm) is far better than having to contact customers to walk back specific timeslot promises for Valentine's Day.

Step-by-step: How to set up a wide delivery timeslot

1. Go to your Bloom app in your Shopify admin
2. Navigate to Delivery > Time settings
3. You can de-select the days and time you plan to offer for the one wide timeslot, and keep the rest for business-as-usual; otherwise you can clear out everything
4. Click "Add another time group"
5. In this new time group, you can select the days and time you plan to offer for the one wide timeslot
6. For this scenario/example, we'll select Friday (for Feb 13th), and Saturday (for Feb 14th)
7. Click "Add time slot"
8. Set the wide timeslot from 9am-5pm
9. Order limit: You can leave this blank or set to your total daily capacity
10. Click Save

Your customers will now see only one timeslot option: "9:00 AM - 5:00 PM" when they select Friday or Saturday for delivery.

Verifying your Bloom's cut-off time settings

Your cut-off time controls when customers can no longer place orders for same-day delivery. This is separate from your timeslots.

To check your cut-off time:

1. Go to Bloom > Delivery > Date settings (above Time settings)
2. Confirm your Order cut-off time is set correctly (e.g., 1:00 pm if you want to accept same-day orders until 1pm)
3. Confirm Same day or next day is set to Same day

How it works together:

• Cut-off time = When orders stop for same-day delivery
• Timeslot = When the delivery will happen

Example: If your cut-off is 1pm and your time slot is 9am-5pm:

• Customer orders at 11am > They can select today for 9am-5pm delivery
• Customer orders at 2pm > They'll have to choose tomorrow or later

Related: Deactivating delivery timeslots entirely

If you want customers to select a delivery date for Valentine's WITHOUT any delivery timeslot options:

1. Go to Delivery > Time settings
2. Click the "Deactivate" button next to "Time slots are currently active"

Customers can still choose delivery dates, but now they won't see timeslot options at checkout.

Note: Your timeslot settings should be preserved when you deactivate and reactivate, but it's worth testing this on a quiet day before a busy period to confirm.

Need help?

If you're still stuck or want to confirm your settings are correct before Valentine's Day, just email us at support@shopside.com.au, we're more than happy to help!