% of shipments resulting in a lost-parcel claim. Evri’s historical reputation - if the rate is climbing, time to renegotiate or switch carrier.
At a glance
Share of Evri parcels that resulted in a lost-parcel claim being filed within the rolling 90-day window. Lost parcels on Evri include those last-scanned at depot (never re-emerged into the network), stuck in transit for 14+ days without further events, and those reported lost by the customer where Evri investigation could not locate. Evri’s historical reputation pre-2022 rebrand was driven heavily by this metric; it remains the single-most-watched signal for “is Evri’s network reliable enough for this brand”.
| What it counts | COUNT(parcels WHERE lost_claim_filed = true) / COUNT(parcels_dispatched) over the rolling 90-day window. Numerator is filed lost claims (regardless of payout outcome); denominator is total parcels dispatched. |
| API endpoint | Evri’s claims register pulled in conjunction with the dispatched-parcel count from the shipping API. Reads claim_type = 'LOST', claim_filed_at, and matches against tracking_number to ensure no double-counting. |
| What “lost” means | Either (a) parcel last-scanned at depot 14+ days ago without further events, (b) merchant filed a lost claim and Evri accepted the claim into investigation, (c) parcel is in LOST_AT_DEPOT exception state. |
| Service level scope | All outbound services. Returns leg has its own loss tracking. |
| Time window | 90D (rolling 90 days). Longer window than other Evri cards because lost-parcel signals aggregate slowly: a parcel filed lost on day 21 of a 90-day window only counts after the lost claim is opened. |
| Returns / RTO | RTS parcels successfully returned to merchant are not counted lost; RTS parcels that disappear during the return leg are. |
| Time zone | UK local. |
| Alert trigger | >1.5%. UK courier loss-rate benchmark: Royal Mail Tracked ~0.5 percent, DPD ~0.8 percent, APC ~0.6 percent, Evri historically 1.5 to 2.5 percent. The Evri-specific 1.5 percent alert is the threshold of “the cost-vs-reliability trade-off may have tipped”. |
| Currency | n/a directly; financial impact is parcel value plus carriage cost across the lost cohort. |
| Roles | owner, operations, finance |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Evri (formerly Hermes UK) data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK DTC clothing brand running Evri Standard for 14,000 monthly parcels (roughly 42,000 over 90 days). Reading taken at 09:00 BST on 12 Mar 26 for the trailing 90 days (12 Dec 25 to 11 Mar 26).| Loss attribution | Parcel count | % of total dispatched | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last-scanned-at-depot 14+ days | 312 | 0.74% | Largest cause |
| Lost claim accepted by Evri | 168 | 0.40% | Investigation underway |
| LOST_AT_DEPOT exception | 84 | 0.20% | Confirmed lost, claim filed |
| Customer-reported, never delivered, no scan | 35 | 0.08% | Most contested category |
| Total lost (this card) | 599 | 1.43% | (just below alert) |
>1.5% is just clear but trending up. Five things to notice:
- The 1.43 percent rate is roughly 3x Royal Mail’s published loss rate. That gap is the structural cost of using Evri. For this merchant at £35 average parcel value, 599 lost parcels over 90 days = approximately £21,000 in product value. Evri’s lost-claim payout typically covers ~£20 default per parcel × 599 = £12,000 recovery. Net loss after Evri payout: ~£9,000 over 90 days.
- Last-scanned-at-depot dominates the count. 312 parcels (0.74 percent) sat at an Evri sortation hub and never re-entered the network. Almost certainly mishandled at sortation, either misrouted to wrong depot, dropped behind a conveyor, or stolen at depot. The depot-level fix is operational; the merchant cannot fix it directly.
- The 35 customer-reported never-delivered parcels are the most contested. Evri’s tracking shows “delivered” but customer says no. Either (a) driver delivered to wrong address, (b) parcel was stolen from doorstep after delivery, (c) recipient is making a fraudulent claim. The merchant has to decide per case whether to refund (default) or contest.
- Watch the trend, not the absolute level. A persistent 1.5 percent loss rate is Evri’s network normal. A loss rate that has climbed from 1.0 to 1.4 percent over the past 6 months is the signal to start renegotiation or carrier-switch evaluation. Compare against the Cost Per Shipment Trend on the cost side.
- Compare the £9,000 net 90-day loss against the carriage saving. The same 42,000 parcels via Royal Mail Tracked 48 would cost roughly (£3.50 - £2.21) × 42,000 = £54,180 more in carriage. The net Evri saving even after lost-parcel cost is ~£45,000 per 90 days. The trade-off is still positive at this loss rate; it tips negative around 3 percent loss rate.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Lost-parcel rate is the carrier-reliability headline. Pair with these:| Card | Why pair it | What the combination tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Open Claims | Lost claims register. | Count in flight; this card’s percentage is the rate generating that count. |
| Claim Value (open) | Cash recovery pipeline. | Recovery vs gross loss tells the net cost of the loss rate. |
| Avg Shipping Cost | Cost side of the trade-off. | Loss rate × parcel value vs carriage saving = trade economics. |
| Exception Rate | LOST_AT_DEPOT exceptions feed this card. | If exception rate climbs but loss rate doesn’t, the network is recovering most cases. |
| Redelivery Attempts > 3 | Multi-attempt parcels sometimes become lost rather than RTS. | Both rising signals exception-handling pipeline failure. |
| On-Time Delivery Rate | Aggregate reliability. | Loss rate is the worst tail of the OTD distribution. |
Cross-connector: shopify.refund_rate | Customer-side refunds for lost parcels. | Strong correlation; lost-parcel rise translates directly to refund rise. |
Cross-connector: stripe.dispute_count | Lagged disputes from lost parcels. | Customers who don’t get a refund sometimes raise Stripe disputes. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Evri’s own portal: Evri’s portal does not surface a single “lost-parcel rate” KPI. The closest equivalent is Reports → Service Performance which shows total parcels delivered vs failed, with failed including refused, RTS, and lost. The card derives the loss-only slice from the claims register and exception data. For account-managed customers, Evri’s monthly performance review includes a depot-level loss attribution; ask the account manager. Why our number may legitimately differ from any Evri report:| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Definition of “lost” | Either | Vortex IQ pools last-scanned-at-depot 14+ days, accepted lost claims, and customer-reported never-delivered. Evri’s reports may use a narrower definition. |
| Customer-reported parcels | Ours higher | Vortex IQ counts customer-reported never-delivered (with claim filed) as lost; Evri’s portal sometimes excludes these unless investigation confirms loss. |
| Reporting lag | Ours stale | Lost claims are filed 7 to 28 days after expected delivery; today’s reading slightly under-counts the most recent week’s losses. |
| Time zone | Boundary days off | UK local on both. |
hermes_lost_parcel_rate × her_shipments_total ≈ her_open_claims (lost-only subset, plus closed lost claims in window). The loss rate × volume should approximately equal cumulative lost claims filed over the period.
Cross-connector reconciliation:
| Card | Expected relationship | Causes of legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
royal_mail.roy_open_claims | Royal Mail loss-claim equivalent (no published rate card). | Royal Mail’s loss rate is much lower; comparison is portfolio context. |
shopify.refund_rate | Customer refunds for lost parcels. | Strong correlation; refund rate has other drivers too. |
Documentation cross-reference (Evri-specific tail-loss metric). This card is unique to Evri because Evri’s network publishes the highest UK courier loss rate, making the metric meaningful enough to track separately. Royal Mail, DPD, and APC track lost parcels via Open Claims only.