At a glance
Average all-in cost paid to Interlink Express per consignment in the period: base rate plus zone surcharge plus fuel surcharge plus Saturday uplift plus Enhanced Compensation Cover plus signature-required fee, divided by consignment count. The card is the per-shipment economics dial; pair withint_otd_rateandint_open_claimsto see whether the spend is buying you the service it should.
| What it counts | SUM(consignment_total_charge_gbp) / COUNT(consignments) over rolling 30 days. Includes base, zone, fuel, Saturday, signature, ECC. Excludes credit-note refunds and service-failure refunds. |
| Service level scope | All services pooled: Pre10:30, Pre12, Next-Day, 2-Day, Saturday. Per-service breakdown on int_shipments_by_service. |
| Surcharges included | Fuel surcharge (DPD-group publishes monthly), residential / out-of-area zone surcharges, Saturday uplift, signature-required uplift, ECC fee. |
| B2B vs B2C rate differences | Pooled. Most merchants negotiate two rate cards: a B2B-volume rate (~25 to 40% lower per consignment, recognising lower exception rate and predictable corporate addresses) and a B2C consumer rate. The headline avg blends both; pair with interlink_xc_otd_by_channel for split. Pre10:30 is the most expensive Interlink tier (£14 to £20 base) reflecting the first-light depot allocation. |
| Currency | GBP. UK-domestic. |
| Tariff change cadence | DPD-group publishes a base-tariff change once a year (typically January) with fuel-surcharge updated monthly. Expect a January step-up of 3 to 6% on this card; absorb it in period-vs-period comparison. |
| Time window | 30D vsP |
| Alert trigger | +10% vsP, the gauge sentiment trips when avg cost rises more than 10% versus prior period. The intent is to catch tariff changes, fuel-spike, or shifting service-mix unintended-effects. |
| Roles | owner, finance, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Interlink Express 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 contract-stationery and print-services merchant: corporate-office and clinic accounts on Pre10:30 and Pre12 (delivery before staff start the working day), DTC consumer on Next-Day. Reading taken at 10:00 GMT on 02 Apr 26 for the trailing 30 days (02 Mar 26 to 01 Apr 26).| Service | Consignments | Total spend | Avg cost per shipment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre10:30 (B2B clinics + corp) | 1,140 | £18,240 | £16.00 |
| Pre12 (B2B mixed) | 380 | £4,940 | £13.00 |
| Next-Day (DTC consumer) | 2,860 | £25,740 | £9.00 |
| 2-Day (bulk DTC) | 220 | £1,760 | £8.00 |
| Saturday-uplift Next-Day | 95 | £1,330 | £14.00 |
| Total / weighted avg | 4,695 | £52,010 | £11.08 |
- The 4.3% rise is well below trip threshold. Most of it is January tariff carry-forward and a small Saturday-uplift volume rise.
- Pre10:30 dominates the merchant’s spend. £18,240 spend on 1,140 consignments = 35% of total spend on 24% of volume. Pre10:30 unit economics are critical to the merchant’s overall shipping P&L.
- B2B Pre10:30 at £16 is the highest unit cost. First-light depot capacity, dedicated route allocation, and guaranteed 10:30 cutoff all factor into the price. Corporate customers pay the carriage uplift through B2B contract terms; the merchant absorbs none of it directly.
- Next-Day at £9 is the volume cohort. DTC consumer Next-Day is the merchant’s bread-and-butter; if Next-Day rate-card moves 5%, the headline avg moves 3%.
- Compare against
int_otd_rate. Cost up + OTD up = fair trade; cost up + OTD flat = renegotiate. With OTD at 96.6% (from earlier example) and cost up 4.3%, the spend-to-service ratio is slightly worse YoY. Bring this card to the next account-team review.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Average shipping cost is the per-shipment economics dial. Pair with these:| Card | Why pair it with Avg Shipping Cost | What the combination tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per Shipment Trend | The 90-day shape; this card is the 30-day point. | Spike-in-period vs sustained climb. |
| Cost by Zone | Splits avg by destination zone. | Mix-shift vs rate-shift attribution. |
| Shipments by Service | Service-mix split. Pre10:30 is 2x Next-Day cost; mixing toward premium lifts avg. | Most multi-point rises are mix-shift. |
| Pre-10:30 Service Promise | Pre10:30 is the most expensive service tier. | If Pre10:30 SLA dips while cost stays, spend-to-service is degrading on the contracted-premium tier. |
| On-Time Delivery Rate | Service half of spend-to-service ratio. | Cost up + OTD up = fair. Cost up + OTD flat = renegotiate. |
| Open Claims | Carriage refund recovery offsets gross cost. Net cost = gross minus recovered. | Filing rate gap = unrecovered carriage. |
| High-Cost Shipment Outliers | Top-decile-cost consignments. | Out-of-area / oversize / signature-required cluster. |
Cross-connector: shopify.shipping_revenue | Customer-side. Checkout-collected vs paid-to-carrier. | Margin compression detection. |
Cross-connector: apc.apc_avg_shipping_cost | Peer UK premium. | APC tends to undercut Interlink on B2B Pre10:30 by 5 to 10%. |
Cross-connector: parcelforce.par_avg_shipping_cost | Peer UK premium, different network. | Used for shop-around. Parcelforce typically 5 to 15% cheaper on Next-Day, more expensive on rural. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Interlink Express’s own dashboard: Interlink Express MyDPD Business → Invoices → Monthly Statement. Per-consignment line-item audit at Reports → Charge Detail. Why our number may legitimately differ from Interlink’s invoice:| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Period boundary | Either | Interlink invoices on monthly billing cycle (typically calendar-month). The card uses calendar 30-day rolling windows. |
| Credit notes | Ours higher (gross) | Service-failure refunds and damage compensation appear as credit notes on next invoice. Card shows gross spend. |
| Surcharge timing | Either | Fuel surcharge updates monthly; new rate applies to consignments shipped in new month. |
| VAT inclusion | Ours typically excludes VAT | Card defaults to ex-VAT (matches B2B-merchant accounting). |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
shopify.shipping_revenue | Customer-side companion. | Free-shipping promotions, threshold-based rules, B2B negotiated terms. |
apc.apc_avg_shipping_cost | Peer. | Different consignments. |
parcelforce.par_avg_shipping_cost | Peer, different network. | Different consignments, different rate cards. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Why does our average rise every January? DPD-group annual base-tariff change typically lands mid-January with 3 to 6% step-up. Fuel surcharge tracks UK pump diesel monthly. Combined, expect a 4 to 8% YoY rise as structural baseline. Adjust YoY comparisons accordingly; the alert at +10% vsP catches step moves vs creep moves. Pre10:30 is twice Next-Day cost; is that fair? Yes structurally. Pre10:30 commits to 10:30 next-day and Interlink dedicates first-light depot capacity. The premium is for the time-definite SLA, not parcel size or weight. B2B reseller, healthcare, corporate-IT customers value the SLA enough to pay it. If your B2B cohort is small, simplify to Pre12 or Next-Day. Can we negotiate the rate card? Yes, on volume. Interlink (DPD-group) account managers negotiate rate-card discounts on volumes above ~£3K monthly. Bring this card,int_otd_rate, interlink_pre10_30_sla, and int_open_claims to the conversation. Service-mix lock-in (commit to 60%+ Pre10:30 over 12 months) is the typical lever for 6 to 12% rate-card improvement.
Why did avg cost spike but the rate card has not changed?
Most likely service-mix shift. Promotions that drove premium-Pre10:30 / Pre12 volume up will lift avg without rate-card change. Other usual causes: fuel-surcharge step (monthly DPD-group update), Saturday-uplift volume rise, out-of-area zone consignment cluster.
Carriage-refund recovery: how does that show up here?
It does not. Card is gross spend per consignment, before claim recovery. To compute net cost, subtract claim recoveries from gross. Interlink’s tighter 14-day filing window means a higher proportion of recovery is captured (vs Parcelforce’s 30-day window where claims are missed more often).
How do peak fuel-surcharge spikes show up?
Diesel-pump-driven fuel surcharge updates monthly. A 10 to 15% diesel rise lifts fuel surcharge by 0.4 to 1.2 percentage points on consignment total; on a £9 Next-Day that is 4 to 11p, modest.
Enhanced Compensation Cover sits in this card?
Yes. ECC is a per-consignment fee Interlink charges to lift the £100 cap. It is paid as part of carriage charge and shows in the avg-cost denominator. Tracking ECC take-up rate helps decide if the merchant is buying too much or too little.
Saturday uplift: when is it worth paying?
Saturday uplift adds ~£4 to £6 to Next-Day base. If it converts Friday-cohort consignments from “fail Next-Day Monday” to “deliver on time Saturday”, the £4 saves a £8 to £14 service-failure refund and customer-experience cost. Pair with int_otd_rate to evaluate.
During Q4 peak, avg cost rises and OTD falls; is this normal?
Yes. Q4 brings fuel surcharge spikes, peak-period zone uplifts (Interlink/DPD-group sometimes adds a temporary peak surcharge late November to mid-December), Saturday-uplift volume growth. OTD sags 3 to 6 percentage points network-wide. Expect a worse spend-to-service ratio for 6 to 8 weeks.
Compared to Parcelforce, is Interlink cheaper or more expensive?
Net comparable for similar service tiers, with Interlink slightly more expensive on Pre10:30 / Pre12 (DPD-group network commands a premium for the predicted-window infrastructure) and slightly cheaper on Next-Day. Most multi-carrier merchants land at “Interlink for urban DTC and B2B, Parcelforce for rural and weekend”.