Who actually needs a tracking number?
Hint: It's not the shipper.
If there’s one tracking system design mistake that carriers regularly make, it’s only allowing their direct customer, the shipper, to track shipments.
Put yourself in the shoes of an ecommerce shipper. What are the uses for this tracking number?
This is not freight forwarding where you are micromanaging the delivery of a container carrying $500K of cargo. You ship thousands of orders, and you don’t track a single one.
As an ecommerce shipper . . .
You are required to provide proof of shipping to marketplaces in order to maintain good standing or ratings, and maybe even for release of funds
Your merchant processor (ie - payment provider) may require proof of shipping to ensure that you fulfilled and delivered the order - that’s how they manage merchant risk
You fraud-prevention provider may be need to analyse shipping and delivery patterns in order to prevent losses from fraudulent orders
Your customer might be utilizing a Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) service which requires the tracking as proof of purchase and receipt of item before financing can occur
If an order is lost, your insurance and claims management software and providers will need tracking statuses and maybe proof of delivery to file the claim
Your returns management software needs to know the tracking status of returns coming back into your posession
You utilize 3rd party shipment notification software which requires tracking statuses from the carrier to send the shipment notifications
Your customer service ticking system needs to obtain tracking statuses when dealing with customer inquires about their order
Your supply chain and delivery ecosystem partners (customer brokers, middle mile, aggregators, warehouses) need visibility on where shipments and packages are
Many carriers incorrectly assume that the shipper can easily pass their shipment tracking to these partners. That is completely wrong. Here are the problems that the carriers’ customer, the shipper, faces:
Most shippers utilize far too many services, from multiple providers, that expecting them to somehow manually connect or integrate the carrier’s system with 20 different service providers, systems, and ecosystem partners is not feasible - when you are shipping thousands of orders on a daily basis and you need streamlined scalable solutions
Most of the systems from service providers and ecosystem partners simply do not have any way for the user to either manually send tracking numbers into the system because it’s not scalable, nor do they provide any UX or support for thousands of seller to connect their carrier account - try telling the world’s biggest marketplaces that they need to accommodate for carrier X, Y, or Z’s tracking policy and see what they say
The shipper may not have direct access to the number of service providers and ecosystem partners involved that need the tracking - think about a cross border parcel shipment - while they may contract with an originating logistics services provider, all the ecosystem partners in between need the tracking too
Data Privacy - Resolved Long Ago
Some carriers believe that they cannot provide tracking data to a non-shipper due to data privacy regulation. This is incorrect. In fact, the majority of parcels shipped in the world are trackable by non-shippers already and the industry has already dealt with this. GDPR has long indicated that it’s ok to provide tracking data to 3rd parties so long as it is compliant with GDPR framework. For more information, read Why Carrier’s Need DPAs for Tracking.
Brutal Reality
What do the largest carriers in the world including USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, Amazon Shipping, etc all have in common? They allow authorized 3rd parties to track shipments in a fully data-compliant and ecosystem friendly manner.
For that reason, the systems designs of various marketplaces, service providers and ecosystems players don’t need to allow for sellers-shippers to manually connect to or integrate carrier tracking.
The most important carriers in the world with the highest volumes are already connected, therefore adding smaller carriers doesn’t have the same financial incentive.
If a carrier is non-trackable, the shipper is simply better off choosing a carrier like the ones mentioned earlier that do integrate to the wider ecosystem.
What Can Carriers Do
Carriers can ensure that their tracking system design supports authorized 3rd party tracking intermediaries that can connect their tracking to a large number of wider ecosystem players.
For the Best Practices on developing real time tracking webhooks, check out Best Practices: Webhook Design for Carrier Tracking.