Description
Most “order in the next 10 minutes!” timers are fake – they reset on every page load and pressure shoppers with a deadline that doesn’t mean anything. GoalPrevail Shipping Countdown Timer does the opposite. You tell it when your shipping department actually works, and it shows a countdown to your real same-day dispatch cut-off. When the cut-off passes (or it’s the weekend, or a holiday), it quietly switches to a calm, static message.
That’s urgency you can stand behind – and shoppers can trust.
- Tied to your real shipping hours – set the timezone, working days, and the daily dispatch cut-off. The timer counts down to your cut-off.
- Order buffer – give the warehouse breathing room: “orders must be in 30 minutes before cut-off” so you never over-promise.
- Two messages, your words – one for during shipping hours (with the live
[countdown]), one for outside hours. Basic formatting allowed, so “Fast Shipping!” can be bold. - Self-hosted icons – a crisp truck/package/bolt drawn as inline SVG. It never loads Font Awesome, so it can’t clash with an icon font your theme already uses. Prefer your own? Paste any icon markup (e.g. a Font Awesome
<i>). - Place it where you want – above or below the Add to Cart button, under the price, after the short description, or after the product meta. Or drop the
[gpsct_shipping_countdown]shortcode anywhere. - Cache-safe by design – the countdown is recomputed in the visitor’s browser, in your store’s timezone, every second. A fully page-cached product page is always correct, never stuck on a stale time.
- Holidays & days off – list the dates your team isn’t shipping; the timer shows the “outside hours” message on those days.
- Looks the part – accent colour, optional coloured box, alignment, font size, long (“6 hours 45 min”) or short (“6h 45m”) format, and an optional seconds counter.
- Respects stock – hide the same-day promise on out-of-stock or backordered products (on by default), so you never promise what you can’t ship.
- Live preview – the settings screen previews the exact banner, ticking on your real schedule, as you edit.
Built by Goal Prevail. No account, no upsells, no banners in your dashboard, and it makes zero external requests.
Installation
- Upload the
goalprevail-shipping-countdown-timerfolder to/wp-content/plugins/, or install via Plugins -> Add New. - Activate it.
- Visit GP Plugins -> Shipping Countdown and set your shipping timezone, days and hours.
- (Optional) Adjust the message, icon and placement. The defaults are ready to go.
WooCommerce is needed for the automatic placement on product pages. Without it, the [gpsct_shipping_countdown] shortcode still works on any page.
FAQ
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Is the countdown “fake” like the ones that reset every visit?
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No. It counts down to a real time – your shipping department’s daily cut-off, in your timezone. When that time passes it stops counting and shows your “outside hours” message. It never resets to create false pressure.
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Does it work with page caching / a CDN?
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Yes, and this was a design goal. The visible countdown is calculated in the visitor’s browser using your store’s timezone, so even a fully cached HTML page shows the correct time. The server only renders a sensible first frame for visitors without JavaScript.
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Will it load Font Awesome and break my theme’s icons?
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No. The built-in icons are self-hosted inline SVGs – nothing is enqueued, so there’s no clash with any icon font already on your site. If you do use Font Awesome and want its truck-fast icon, choose “My own icon” and paste
<i class="fa-solid fa-truck-fast"></i>. -
Where does it show on the product page?
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Wherever you choose: above/below the Add to Cart button, under the price, after the short description, or after the product meta. You can also place it anywhere with the
[gpsct_shipping_countdown]shortcode. -
Can I change the wording?
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Yes. There are two editable messages – one for during shipping hours (put
[countdown]where the timer should go) and one for outside hours. A little inline HTML is allowed for bold/italic. -
What timezone does it use?
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Your WordPress timezone by default, or any timezone/city you pick – set it to wherever your shipping team actually works.
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Does it phone home or collect data?
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No. It stores one option in your database and makes no external requests.
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Is it compatible with WooCommerce HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage)?
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Yes. The plugin doesn’t touch order data, and it declares HPOS compatibility.
Reviews
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Contributors & Developers
“GoalPrevail Shipping Countdown Timer” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “GoalPrevail Shipping Countdown Timer” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.0
- Initial release: real, schedule-based same-day shipping countdown for WooCommerce product pages; per-store timezone, working days, hours and order-buffer cut-off; two editable messages with a live
[countdown]; self-hosted SVG icons (no Font Awesome dependency) plus a custom-icon option; seven placement positions and a shortcode; holidays/days-off; stock-aware display; accent colour, box style, alignment, font size, long/short format and optional seconds; cache-safe browser-side countdown; bundled translation template; plugin-specific global constants; multisite-safe uninstall cleanup; shared GP Plugins dashboard; and a live preview in the settings screen.