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Card class: Hero • Category: Shipping & Courier

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At a glance

Absolute count of EasyPost-booked shipments that delivered after the underlying carrier’s service-promise date in the period. Companion to On-Time Delivery Rate, which is the percentage. The count is what the customer-service team works through one row at a time across all underlying carriers (USPS, FedEx, UPS, regional).
What it countsCOUNT(EasyPost shipments WHERE actual_delivery_date > scheduled_delivery_date AND actual_delivery_date IS NOT NULL) over the trailing 7 days. Each delivered-late shipment counts once regardless of underlying carrier.
Why the multi-carrier view mattersDirect-to-carrier merchants need to check 3+ carrier dashboards for late counts; EasyPost users see all in one place. The card replaces multiple per-carrier reports with one unified worklist for the customer-service team.
Delivery success criterionEasyPost’s normalised “Delivered” status from the unified Tracking API.
Returns / RTOExcluded.
Service level scopeAll EasyPost-booked services pooled. To split by carrier, use Shipments by Service.
Refund-eligibility splitCarrier-dependent. FedEx Express subset is MBG-eligible; USPS Priority Mail Express subset is MBG-eligible; USPS Priority Mail, Ground Advantage, Media Mail, and FedEx Ground/Home are not. Operations should split the count by underlying carrier before filing claims.
Customer-service loadIndustry rule of thumb: 8 to 15% of late deliveries trigger a customer touchpoint. The total count predicts CS staffing requirements.
Holiday/election effectCounts spike in November-December (3x to 5x normal) and around US elections. Plan CS staffing around the count, not the rate.
Time window7D (rolling 7 days, weekly operational view)
Alert trigger>5% of total shipments for the period
Rolesowner, operations

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Calculation

Calculated automatically from your EasyPost data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

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Worked example

A US DTC mid-market apparel merchant, multi-carrier through EasyPost. Reading taken at 09:00 ET on 12 Mar 26 for the trailing 7 days.
Underlying CarrierShipmentsLate countLate %MBG-eligible?
USPS Ground Advantage1,510966.4%No
USPS Priority Mail880687.7%No
FedEx Ground480224.6%No
FedEx 2Day9522.1%Yes
UPS Ground280145.0%No
OnTrac (regional)19584.1%No
All carriers (this card)3,4402106.1%mixed
The card reads 210 late shipments for the week; alert at >5% has tripped. Five things to notice:
  1. Customer-service workload tomorrow: 17 to 32 inbound contacts. 8 to 15% of 210 late = 17 to 32 emails, calls, chats. Schedule staffing accordingly.
  2. Only 2 of the 210 are refund-claimable (the FedEx 2Day subset under MBG). Operations files those via FedEx Billing Online; the other 208 are pure customer-experience cost.
  3. USPS subset is the dominant late-driver (164 of 210, 78%). USPS rate-shopping captured cost saving but the on-time gap is real. Consider configuring EasyPost rate-rules to upgrade Priority Mail to FedEx Ground for zone 5+, accepting marginal cost increase for ~30 to 50 fewer late shipments per week.
  4. OnTrac at 4.1% is excellent for regional. OnTrac and other regional carriers (LSO, Lasership) often beat national carriers in their coverage areas; rate-shopping correctly selected them.
  5. Compare against last week. Volume up 12% week-over-week, late count up 18% week-over-week. Late rate climbing faster than volume; investigation focuses on whether one carrier or one zone is degrading.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

CardWhy pair it with Late ShipmentsWhat the combination tells you
On-Time Delivery RateThe percentage behind the count.Always read together.
Shipments TotalVolume context.Late count rising in line with volume = stable rate.
Shipments by ServiceCarrier-mix split.Shows which carrier is dragging the count.
Exception RateLead indicator.Pre-late warning at 1 to 3 day lag.
Open ClaimsRefund pipeline.MBG-eligible late subset flows here.
Cross-connector: fedex.fed_late_shipments_countDirect-FedEx subset comparison.Reconcile EasyPost-FedEx subset.
Cross-connector: usps.usp_late_shipments_countSame for USPS.Same caveat.
Cross-connector: customer-service ticket-volumeDirect correlation.This count predicts CS load at 1 to 3 day lag.

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in EasyPost’s own dashboard: EasyPost Dashboard → Tracking → Filter “Late deliveries” → Last 7 Days. Each row shows tracking number, carrier, scheduled delivery, actual delivery. Use this as the source for filing carrier-specific MBG claims. Why our number may legitimately differ from EasyPost’s portal:
ReasonDirectionWhy
Tracking-poll lagEitherEasyPost polls every 30 to 60 minutes; today’s reading may slightly differ.
Filter scopeEitherMatch “All Carriers” between card and dashboard.
Carrier-side updatesEitherSome carriers backfill scan events 12 to 48 hours late; counts converge over T-2.
Cross-connector reconciliation:
CardExpected relationshipWhat causes legitimate divergence
fedex.fed_late_shipments_countEasyPost-FedEx subset.Direct FedEx counts include non-EasyPost shipments.
usps.usp_late_shipments_countSame for USPS.Same.

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

How do I file MBG claims for the late EasyPost shipments? Filter the late list by carrier to identify the MBG-eligible subset (FedEx Express services, USPS Priority Mail Express). Then go directly to the carrier’s portal: FedEx Billing Online for FedEx claims, usps.com for USPS. EasyPost does not file claims on the merchant’s behalf for direct-carrier MBG. EasyPost’s own insurance product handles its claim flow separately. Why does the count look different from my CS team’s count? Two reasons. (1) CS counts customer-reported late; the card counts data-confirmed late. Some customer-reported lates are tracking data lag, not actual late. (2) CS may include “shipped late from warehouse” issues; the card is delivery-late only. Should I email the customer proactively when I see a late shipment? Yes. Industry rule: send proactive email at 24 hours past commit if not yet delivered. Reduces inbound CS contacts 30 to 50% and improves NPS. My USPS subset is dragging the count. Should I disable USPS rate-shopping? Test before disabling. The cost saving from USPS rate-shopping is typically 20 to 40% on sub-1lb volume; if the late-rate gap to FedEx is small, the cost savings outweigh the late-cost. Run the math: extra CS cost per late shipment (4to4 to 12) × additional lates if USPS routed → vs cost saving on routed-USPS volume. Most merchants come out ahead keeping USPS rate-shopping on. Can EasyPost rate-shop based on on-time history? Yes for enterprise plans. Custom rules can weight historical on-time-by-lane into the rate-shopping decision; the algorithm prefers carriers with better recent performance on the specific lane being booked. Talk to EasyPost CSM to enable. Why does the count spike on Mondays? Weekend-shipped parcels deliver Monday or Tuesday for most ground services; some miss the commit on the Tuesday data-pull. Monday’s reading often reflects backlogged late-counts from Saturday-Sunday. The 7-day rolling smooths this. Do EasyPost test-mode shipments show in this count? No. Test-mode shipments are excluded. How does Q4 affect this count? Volume up 30 to 80% (peak shopping); late count up 200 to 400% (network strain). The rate also climbs but the absolute count is the operational reality. CS staffing scales with the count.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Late Shipments is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across EasyPost and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.