Why do online retailers send you an email that a product was “shipped”, when the status is just label created or carrier awating package etc.
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Most of the answers here are explaining *how* online retailers do it automatically, but not *why.*
I think the reason online retailers are so quick to mark things as shipped is two fold:
First, the platforms (Amazon, Shopify, etc.) rank them on processing time and marking orders as shipped stops that clock. If processing time is too long relative to competitors on the same platform, those items will show up lower in search results.
Second, legally for payment processors, the number of ways a customer can win a credit card charge-back dispute is reduced when an order ships. They can still get a charge-back if the product is wrong or doesn’t work, but they can’t claim it wasn’t delivered or is taking too long.
Both things combined incentivize online retailers to mark orders as shipped as fast as possible.
I actually write shipping software. Usually, the label getting created is one of the last step as it goes out the door. Once the label is applied, it’s put on a pallet, and that pallet is put on a truck that UPS/FedEx picks up at the end of the business day. A few minutes after that, we send out the shipping confirmation email.
The pickup occurs at about 6pm, but it doesn’t get scanned into their system until 10pm-midnight. That’s when the status changes from label created. UPS doesn’t know what’s actually on the truck until they unload it. They can make a guess about it based on what labels we created, but if it didn’t actually end up on the truck, they don’t want to be blamed.
It’s not uncommon for a package to be ready, sitting in a FedEx trailer at 10am, and the status is “carrier awaiting package”… and the status won’t change for another 12 hours.
Because as far as they’re concerned, they’ve done the work required to ship the product. The underlying problem is more a matter of language than it is technology or even logistics.
Imagine you start making knitted hats and selling them online. You setup a web storefront, and that storefront automatically generates shipping labels for you. You receive an order, package up the hat, print a label, and set the package in the bin with all the other packages to be handed off to the shipper.
You’re done. As far as you’re concerned, the product is shipped, even if the shipper hasn’t picked the product up yet. The act of printing and affixing the shipping label is the last “action” that you’ll take.
When your customer logs in, they see that the package is “shipped, awaiting pickup by carrier”. When the carrier picks up the package, the status will automatically update, but it’s the shipping carrier updating the information at this point, not you (the hat maker).
That’s why orders transition to “shipped” as soon as the seller prints the label.
Let’s assume for a moment that this isn’t good enough. Customers are annoyed that it says “shipped” when the carrier hasn’t even picked it up yet. How can we do better?
One option would be to mark the order “awaiting shipment” instead of “shipped”. But how will the system be updated when the carrier actually picks the package up? We could assign the fulfillment a shipping “batch”, then manually tell the system when the batch has shipped. But that’s a manual process, which requires additional time.
You (the hat maker) are busy knitting hats and packing them up for shipment. If you have to spend more time simply updating order status information manually, you’ll have to raise your prices. There’s a problem though. The hat maker around the corner isn’t even trying to solve this problem, so their overhead is lower. They’re beating you on price because of this, and you’re losing customers.
Another option would be to have the system check the tracking information for each order and update the shipping status with more meaningful status information like “awaiting pickup”, “in transit”, “delivered”, or “delivery exception”. This requires an additional API integration though, and your shipper won’t provide this for free. The web storefront you bought also doesn’t support this feature. You’d have to pay your shipper more for API access and buy a more expensive web storefront system in order to provide this to your customers.
Again though, your competitor down the street isn’t doing any of this. They’re still over there offering a lower price, taking all of your customers. Sure, those customers are frustrated when their order says “shipped”, even when it is not, but they don’t find that out until *after* they’ve placed their order. The majority of them aren’t going to cancel over something so trivial, so you’re getting stomped in the market, event though you’re offering better customer service.
And *that* is how we end up with crappy customer service on the back-end of the sale. This is the result of decades of optimization for consumer preferences. We may be unhappy about poor customer service, but on the whole, consumers are unwilling to pay a little more to get something better. Until that changes, you’ll just have to stare at that “shipped” status and click through to the shipper’s status page to get more detail.
I think it helps to think of how the transaction would work with a small company. You make an order. They package your order up, and put a shipping label on it. They drop it in a mailbox. Sometime later, the parcels in that mailbox are picked up, scanned into the postal system’s computer, sorted, loaded onto trucks, and eventually make their way to your door.
From the point of view of the retailer, that package was ‘shipped’ when they dropped in into the mailbox. They may even count it as ‘shipped’ when it’s packaged and dropped into a box by the door for the next trip to the mailbox. Even though it’s not in the hands of the courier quite yet, the shipping process has started.
I used to work in a retail store that would send out online orders. I look on the register and find the item, make and print the label, add the tracking number to the register. Then check it ready for pickup and the tracking is automatically sent. Then that will get updated when the mail person comes to pick it up. Even if I am personally packing up your order I’m not going to be there the next morning when the mail carriers come, and it would create more problems if we had to wait until they actually come to send that out. Even if I were there the next morning I could be the only one in the store talking to customers. This is in the context of when our online warehouses don’t have something and a store fulfills it but it’s a nearly identical process from the warehouse. And really when the next step is for the 3rd party mail carrier to update when they have the package that is literally not our responsibility. If I say the package was picked up but then they never scan it and it goes missing, I am not just going to put myself in the position to take accountability.
Works in both ways. Returning goods to amazon, after the collection point scan the label you got the status about your return being on the way back. Mostly within 24 hours I getting my money back even thou the parcel is still with the collection point.
I’m an online retailer. We ship it when that email is sent out. However the shipping company might not get a scan on it for a day or two, so it shows label created, waiting on package. However lots of things can affect this. USPS in my area had their sorting machines go down and they were hand sorting everything. This caused massive delays. People calling in saying the USPS didn’t have the package. It did. It just wasn’t getting scanned till it arrived at the final destination hub. It’s a hassle sometimes.
Basically, when online retailers send you an email saying that a product has been “shipped”, they may actually mean that the shipping label has been created or the carrier is just waiting to pick up the package. The purpose of this notification is to keep customers informed about their order status and let them know that the shipping process has begun. It also helps manage customer expectations and reduce inquiries about the delivery timeline. Overall, it’s a way for retailers to provide transparency and communicate with customers throughout the shipping process.
In our system creating a shipping label calls it shipped in our system and triggers an automated “shipped” message.
We then have standing pickup times with UPS and USPS to pick up packages. Say 3:30pm, which is usually when all the packages going out that day are ready for pickup.
In theory, by the time most people read their “shipped” email the package is in the hands of UPS or USPS, who will scan it in on their end, and show it moving through their system.
It works well most of the time.
The big problems tend to arise when USPS or UPS fails to pickup that day (it happens, especially if someone is covering a route and they’re short handed). Or, if your package gets to the Post Office/UPS hub and sits there for a while before getting scanned in.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, Amazon has set the bar for delivery, and everyone wants everything immediately. Most smaller companies don’t have the logistical power of a company like Amazon, so they’re stuck doing the best they can with the software and shipping options available to them.
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