How to minimize the chances of a parcel getting lost
The emergence of online businesses means that more and more people tend to do their shopping online, with a few taps of a button. What this also means is growth of the shipping industry as a whole.
As more parcels are needed to be delivered on the regular, more courier companies emerge offering their services to meet the demand.
It can be said that modern shipping services are pretty much bulletproof. Automation and computerization is being used on a heavy scale, while humans simply operate the machinery.
Despite this, the instances where a parcel gets lost still sometimes happen. In this article we will focus on how you can minimize the chances of a package getting lost from your perspective.
Make sure your package is well-labeled
Many senders underestimate the importance of proper labeling. Interesting statistics show that among online shoppers especially, about one package gets lost every six months and nearly 30 percent of them due improper labels.
Apart from proper packaging of your item, the labeling procedure should be the next important step you make. Ensure that the key information such as addresses, street names and phone numbers are clearly visible and of course, the label itself is safely attached on the parcel.
This is especially relevant if you’re printing the labels yourselves as things like a bad ink cartridge on a printer can lead to a parcel being misrouted or lost.
If you’re a business shipping out items for your clients, it’s best to develop a procedure that manually checks the label on every parcel being shipped. This will minimize the chances of failure and thus, that of a lost parcel.
Get proper insurance
Delivery companies typically offer at least a basic form of insurance amounting to a certain sum, in case something goes missing. For example, we at EcoParcel offer an insurance package for all of our deliveries for up to €100 to all shipments going across Europe.
However, quite often people make purchases that are well above this sum, which is that the standard package insurance is simply not enough to cover the damage in case something indeed goes wrong.
Whether you're preparing a personal shipment, or are indeed an ecommerce business shipping out valuable items on a regular basis, we would recommend entertaining the idea of purchasing additional insurance to make sure the parcels of your clients are safe on their journey.
Plain packages are the way to go
Believe it or not, parcel theft is still a thing that can happen today. While it's impossible to completely prevent this without proper control, one thing you can do to improve security is simply go for a more plain looking package.
If the box you're using is very flashy, it can be a signal for wrong doers that item your sending is very valuable.
Even though it is indeed a rare instance, you can never be too secure when it comes to your package. Whether you're sending a private parcel or as online business, use a standard brown packaging, logos and messages to be more secure.
All in all
In this article, we’ve given a few tips to increase the security of your package and minimize the chances of it getting lost. While this happens rarely, being smart about your packaging can prevent disasters of high value items getting lost.
