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Shipping deadlines for Valentine's Day

Your loved one not receiving that perfect gift for this lovely holiday can spell disaster for your holiday weekend, but it doesn't have to happen that way.

Jason Cipriani Contributing Writer, ZDNet
Jason Cipriani is based out of beautiful Colorado and has been covering mobile technology news and reviewing the latest gadgets for the last six years. His work can also be found on sister site CNET in the How To section, as well as across several more online publications.
Jason Cipriani
2 min read

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Will you be my Valentine? Jason Cipriani/CNET

Procrastinators, listen closely. Valentine's Day is fast approaching. If you're ordering presents from a cross-country retailer, shipping deadlines play a big part in ensuring it's delivered on time.

UPS and FedEx are reliable, until you really need something to be delivered on time and then it seems like the shipping gods take the day off the world falls apart. With a little advanced planning, you can rest easy at night knowing you did your best to eliminate any issues this Valentine's Day.

Not all vendors look at this love-filled holiday in the same light as Christmas, so unfortunately not everyone has information readily available. We tried to do our best to represent various types of gifts from different vendors.

Overstock.com

Overstock offers three different shipping deadlines, but keep in mind your order will need to be placed by 11:59 a.m. ET to ensure timely delivery.

Order Deadline Shipping Method
February 6 Ground Shipping
February 11 2-Day Air
February 12 Overnight

For more information, visit Overstock's holiday shipping page.

Macy's

The list below is for standard, in-stock merchandise. Note, jewelry and "beauty" merchandise has a different deadline of February 10 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Order DeadlineShipping Method
February 8 11:59 PM ET Standard
February 10 5:00 PM ET Premium
February 11 5:00 PM ET Express
February 14 3:00 PM Local In-store pickup

There's a healthy amount of fine print on Macy's shipping page, so be sure to read through it before placing an order.

Hallmark

The infamous card store also sells small trinkets, personalized books and various ornaments for each special occasion. The categories just named all have their own respective shipping deadlines.

Gifts & cards

DeadlineMethod
February 7 Ship to store
February 7 Ground
February 10 2-Day
February 11 Overnight

Personalized books

Deadline Method
February 4 Ship to store
February 4 Ground
February 8 2-Day
February 10 Overnight

Read more about Hallmark's shipping deadlines here.

Georgetown Cupcakes

There's not a specific deadline to get your order in with its Valentine's Day assortments being available all month long, but should you want to have your special someone unbox these delicious cupcakes you should place your order sooner than later.

By default, all orders are sent overnight via FedEx.

Here's a list of flavorfull assortments, along with price and shipping costs.

Whole Foods flowers

Whole Foods and Instacart have announced a partnership to deliver flowers on demand. The flower arrangements will be available February 9 through February 15 via either the Instacart website or mobile app. iOS users will be able to pay with Apple Pay, of course.

The floral arrangements start at $25. First-time Instacart users will be treated to free delivery, while returning users can opt for 2-hour delivery for $3.99 and 1-hour delivery for $5.99.

The promotion is limited to Atlanta; Austin; Boston; Boulder; Chicago; Denver; Houston; Los Angeles; New York; Philadelphia; Portland, OR; San Francisco; San Jose, CA; Seattle; and Washington, D.C.

UPS

With vendors like Amazon, Apple, Best Buy and the like not listing holiday shipping deadlines, you can use this UPS chart detailing deadlines for shipping products yourself to make an educated guess. Of course, there's likely an extra day or so put into a retailer's shipping estimate to account for procuring the items, shipping issues and other logistical scenarios.

Nonetheless, UPS shipping deadlines are below.

Shipping OnArrivalSuggested Method
February 13 Early on Feb 14UPS Next Day Air- Early A.M.
February 13 February 14UPS Next Day Air
February 12 February 13UPS Next Day Air Saver
February 11 or 12 Feb. 13 or 14UPS 2nd Day Air
February 10 February 13UPS 3 Day Select
February 5-12 February 13UPS Ground

As always, there's caveats with each method. As such, read through the entire shipping guide on the UPS site here.