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Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Shipping & Courier
% of shipments resulting in a lost-parcel claim. Evri’s historical reputation - if the rate is climbing, time to renegotiate or switch carrier.

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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”.

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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.

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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). The card reads 1.43 percent, the alert at >1.5% is just clear but trending up. Five things to notice:
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Lost-parcel rate is the carrier-reliability headline. Pair with these:

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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: Internal identity (within Evri): 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:
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.

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why is Evri’s loss rate higher than other UK carriers? Operational model. Self-employed couriers and lean depot operations produce more handling errors and more turnover-related disruptions than salaried-driver / owned-fleet networks. The loss rate is the price of the cost saving. Healthy steady-state for Evri is 1.0 to 2.0 percent; Royal Mail Tracked is 0.3 to 0.6 percent; DPD is 0.5 to 1.0 percent. My loss rate climbed from 1.0 to 1.6 percent over six months, what should I do? The trade-off may have tipped negative. Three steps. (1) Calculate the financial impact, lost product value × volume vs carriage saving vs Royal Mail. If net Evri saving is below £30,000 / month for a 14,000-parcel-per-month book, the trade is borderline. (2) Open a renegotiation with Evri’s account team, ask for service-credit on confirmed losses or rate reductions. (3) Pilot Royal Mail Tracked 48 on a subset (50 percent of volume for 4 weeks) and compare loss rate, OTD, cost. Switch the part of the book where Royal Mail wins. The 2022 rebrand was supposed to fix Evri’s loss problem, why is it still high? The rebrand changed branding, not operations. Loss-rate trends through the rebrand period were continuous. The brand-perception side did improve (search interest, NPS); the operational metric is largely unchanged. Can I claim insurance for every lost Evri parcel? Yes if the merchant carries third-party parcel insurance on top of Evri’s basic compensation. Evri’s default cover is £20 per parcel; insurance picks up the gap up to the parcel’s declared value. Keep declared values current at booking; cannot retroactively raise after a loss event. Why does the customer-reported never-delivered category exist if Evri’s tracking shows delivered? Because Evri’s POD is sometimes wrong. Driver may have delivered to wrong address (signature shows “delivered” but at neighbour’s house), parcel may have been stolen from doorstep after delivery, or the recipient is making a fraudulent claim. The merchant has to decide per case: refund (default) or contest (rare, requires evidence of customer fraud). My loss rate is well above 2 percent, am I being targeted? Probably not targeted. Causes in order. (1) Geography, certain depot catchments have structurally higher loss rates (urban density, depot turnover). (2) Product type, small high-value items (jewellery, electronics) have higher loss rates because they are easier to misplace. (3) Volume tier, very-low-volume merchants sometimes get less-experienced couriers because depots prioritise high-volume routes. Should I file lost claims for every lost parcel? Yes for parcels above ~£15 value. Below that, the time cost of filing exceeds the recovery; many merchants accept small losses as part of carrier cost. Why does the card use a 90-day window when others use 30? Lost-parcel signals aggregate slowly. A parcel filed lost on day 21 of a window only counts after the claim is opened; using a 30-day window would create boundary noise. The 90-day window stabilises the rate. Is Evri’s loss rate getting worse or better in 2026? Roughly stable since the rebrand recovery. The 2022-2023 reputation issues were partly tracking-and-customer-service driven (parcels were not actually lost more often than Hermes-era; the customer-perception side improved with better tracking-event push). Underlying loss rate has held at 1.0 to 2.0 percent steady-state through 2024, 2025, and into 2026.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Lost-Parcel Rate is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Evri (formerly Hermes UK) 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.