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Metrics type: Key Metrics • Category: Shipping & Courier

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At a glance

Share of parcels booked through Net Dispatch (the UK multi-carrier shipping management platform aggregating Royal Mail, DPD, Hermes Evri, Yodel, ParcelForce, DHL, FedEx UK, and regional carriers) delivered on or before the carrier’s published service-promise date. UK ecommerce is multi-carrier by default; Net Dispatch consolidates the rate-shopping, label generation, and tracking across them with a single integration.

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Calculation

Calculated automatically from your NetDispatch 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 homeware merchant routing all parcels through Net Dispatch, primary fulfilment in Leicester (East Midlands). Reading taken at 09:00 GMT on 12 Mar 26 for the trailing 30 days vs the prior 30 days. The card reads 94.0% with sentiment amber (between warn=90 and good=95), trending up. Five things to notice:
  1. Evri and Yodel are the structural drag. Together 4,820 shipments at ~88% on-time pull the aggregate down by ~3 ppt. The cost saving (Evri at £1.95/parcel vs DPD at £4.50) is real but the customer-experience cost is real too. Decision: how much CS workload and refund leakage justifies the £2.55 saving per parcel.
  2. DPD at 98.5% justifies its premium. £4.50/parcel for next-business-day-by-12:00 commit is the strongest UK proposition; merchants moving high-value or time-sensitive volume to DPD see fewer customer complaints and fewer “where is my parcel” emails.
  3. Royal Mail Tracked 24 vs DPD Next Day. Same commit window (next-business-day), DPD slightly more reliable, Royal Mail typically £1-2 cheaper. The merchant uses both with rate-rules; for B2C high-value, DPD; for B2C standard, Royal Mail.
  4. The 866 missed shipments aren’t all “carrier’s fault”. UK address-quality issues (missing flat numbers in flat blocks, postcode-typo errors), recipient-not-home in dense urban areas, weekend backlog, weather (UK winter storms named since 2015) all contribute. Actionable subset is roughly 50-70%.
  5. Brexit international lane (FedEx UK) at 94.5% is good given the customs friction. Pre-Brexit, UK→EU lanes ran 96-98%; the 1.5-3 ppt drop is the customs friction cost. Mitigation: Net Dispatch’s customs-declaration workflow plus IOSS registration where applicable.
Note: this card pairs with NetDispatch OTD by Sales Channel (channel split) and Dispatch-to-Collection Lag (a UK-specific upstream metric: how long between Net Dispatch booking and the carrier’s pickup scan).

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Net Dispatch’s own dashboard: Net Dispatch Dashboard → Reports → Performance → On-Time Delivery, filter by All Carriers, Last 30 Days. Net Dispatch surfaces a similar aggregate plus per-carrier breakdown. Why our number may legitimately differ from Net Dispatch’s portal: Cross-connector reconciliation:

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Net Dispatch vs direct-to-carrier UK, which is better? For UK DTC merchants under £5M/year shipping spend, Net Dispatch usually wins on cost (5-12% saving from pooled rates) and on operational simplicity (one integration vs 4-6 carrier integrations). Direct contracts make sense above £5M/year where merchants can negotiate stronger per-carrier deals. Why does Evri/Hermes have such weak on-time? Evri (formerly Hermes UK) operates a self-employed-courier model with heavy use of remote-worker hubs. The cost saving comes from labour structure; the trade-off is reliability variance especially in holiday periods and rural areas. Most UK DTC merchants accept the trade for non-urgent low-value parcels. Royal Mail Tracked 24 vs DPD Next Day, which should I use? Both commit next-business-day. DPD typically 1-2 ppt better on-time, ~£1-2 more per parcel. For B2C parcels under £50 retail, Royal Mail Tracked 24 is usually fine. For B2C above £50 or any time-sensitive item, DPD’s stronger reliability justifies the premium. My OTD dropped during a Royal Mail strike. Is this Net Dispatch’s fault? No. Royal Mail industrial action (CWU strikes 2022-2024) suspended service on declared days. Net Dispatch’s rate-shopping rules can be configured to auto-route Royal Mail volume to other carriers during declared strikes, but this requires merchant pre-configuration. During an active strike, expect 5-15 ppt drop in Royal Mail subset on-time. Brexit changes for UK→EU shipments? Pre-Brexit, intra-EU was a free-customs zone. Post-1 Jan 2021, UK→EU shipments require commercial invoices, EORI numbers, HS codes. Net Dispatch handles the customs-declaration workflow within the booking flow. Lane on-time rates for UK→EU dropped 5-10 ppt initially and have stabilised at ~94-96% as merchants adapted. Why does Yodel run lower OTD than Royal Mail? Yodel operates a similar self-employed-courier model to Evri, with weaker route density in some regions (especially Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland). For mainland England-only shippers, Yodel competitive; for full-UK, Royal Mail has stronger coverage. Should I shift my Christmas peak volume away from Evri? Often yes. Evri’s on-time degrades 8-15 ppt in November-December (peak strain on the courier network). Configure Net Dispatch rate-rules to upgrade Evri volume to Royal Mail Tracked 48 in late November through Christmas; cost climb ~£0.80/parcel, on-time recovery ~5-8 ppt. Why is my UK→US lane on-time poor? UK→US international (typically routed via FedEx UK or DHL Express) faces customs friction at US Customs (CBP). Pre-clearance via DDP shipping (duty paid at checkout) reduces hold rates. Use FedEx International Priority for higher reliability than International Economy. Card swings day-to-day. Why? Volume fluctuates with merchant order patterns and UK weather. The 30D rolling smooths most noise. The alert at <90% trips on persistent issues, not on a single bad-weather day.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

On-Time Delivery Rate is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across NetDispatch 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.