At a glance
Count of shipments dispatched in the last 7 days where the actual delivery date exceeded Sendle’s quoted ETA window. Sendle is a flat-rate single-courier service (zone-based pricing, predictable transit times), so the on-time question is simpler than multi-carrier orchestrators: there is one carrier, one promise per zone, and the late count is what it is. The simplicity is the point.
| What it counts | COUNT(parcels WHERE actual_delivery_date > eta_max AND ship_date >= now-7d). Each parcel has a Sendle-quoted ETA range at booking time (e.g. “1 to 4 business days”); a parcel is late when actual delivery exceeds the upper bound. |
| API endpoint | GET /api/orders (Sendle Orders API). The card reads tracking_status, delivered_at, estimated_delivery_date_minimum, estimated_delivery_date_maximum per order. |
| Delivery success criterion | Sendle marks delivered once the courier records POD (signature or photo for AU/US, scan-only for some metro routes). Status delivery_failed, unable_to_deliver, or awaiting_collection keep the parcel out of the late numerator until terminal status. |
| On-time threshold | Upper-bound of Sendle’s quoted ETA window, no grace. ETAs differ by zone: AU metro 1 to 2 days, AU regional 2 to 5 days, US metro 1 to 3 days, US ground 3 to 8 days. Each parcel is judged against its own zone-promise. |
| Returns / RTO | Sendle’s RTS flow (Return-To-Sender for unsuccessful delivery) appears in Returned to Sender, not here. A failed-and-eventually-delivered parcel counts as late if it exceeds the window. |
| Service level scope | All Sendle services pooled (Standard, Pro, Saver). Most accounts use one tier; this card is service-tier-aware via the per-parcel ETA. |
| Carbon-neutrality | Sendle is 100% carbon-neutral by default. This card does not measure carbon; it measures lateness. The carbon-neutral claim is independent and never affected by late count. |
| Flat-rate simplicity | Unlike multi-carrier orchestrators (ShippyPro, ShipTheory), Sendle pricing is fixed per zone regardless of carrier. The “carrier” is Sendle (which uses its own contracted couriers under the hood: Couriers Please, Aramex, USPS partnered routes for US). The merchant does not see or pick the underlying courier. |
| Currency | Not applicable, this is a count. |
| Time window | 7D (rolling 7-day window) |
| Alert trigger | >5% of total shipments in the same 7D window. |
| Roles | owner, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Sendle data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
An Australian DTC home-goods brand using Sendle for nationwide delivery. Reading taken at 09:00 AEDT on 12 Mar 26 for the trailing 7 days (5 Mar 26 to 11 Mar 26).| Zone | Shipments | Delivered late vs ETA | Late share |
|---|---|---|---|
| AU Metro (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane) | 1,420 | 38 | 2.7% |
| AU Regional (Tier 2 cities) | 680 | 47 | 6.9% |
| AU Remote (NT, regional WA, Tasmania) | 240 | 62 | 25.8% |
| All zones (this card) | 2,340 | 147 | 6.3% |
>5% of total alert threshold. Five things to notice:
- Remote zone dominates the late count and the alert. 25.8% late on AU Remote translates to 62 of the 147. Without remote, the headline drops to 4.0% and the alert clears. Remote-zone late count is structural for any flat-rate single-carrier service; Sendle’s quoted ETAs assume best-case courier handover, which fails more often in remote.
- Sendle is flat-rate, so there is no “carrier mix” lever. Unlike ShippyPro where the operator can switch carrier on Poste-vs-BRT, Sendle merchants cannot rate-shop within the platform. The only levers are: (a) accept the late-share trade and absorb operational pain, (b) widen the customer-facing ETA in checkout copy to give buffer, (c) move remote-zone orders to a different shipping platform entirely (Australia Post Express, StarTrack premium).
- Metro at 2.7% is healthy. Sendle’s metro performance is competitive with major Australian couriers; the value proposition (carbon-neutral, simple flat rate) holds for ~80% of typical AU DTC volume.
- The 6.3% trip is the moment to widen checkout copy, not switch carriers. Sendle merchants typically respond to this card by updating the shopping-cart ETA estimate (e.g. from “2 to 4 days” to “3 to 6 days for regional, 5 to 10 days for remote”). Customer expectations recalibrate; complaint volume drops; the operational late count is the same but the customer-facing experience improves.
- Q4 / pre-Christmas pattern is worse than Italy. AU Christmas peak (mid-November to mid-December) typically lifts AU Remote late share to 35 to 45 percent because Sendle’s contracted couriers (Couriers Please, Aramex regional partners) hit capacity. Plan checkout copy and despatch cutoffs ahead.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Late count is the headline; for Sendle the diagnostic playbook is short because the carrier is fixed.| Card | Why pair it with Late Shipments | What the combination tells you |
|---|---|---|
| On-Time Delivery Rate | The rate counterpart. | Rate stable + count climbing = volume rising, structural mix unchanged. Rate falling = network or zone-mix shifting. |
| Avg Transit (days) | Companion timing metric. | Late count up + avg transit up = couriers slowing on the routes. Late count up + avg transit flat = ETA quotes were tight at booking. |
| OTD by Route | The zone-by-zone breakdown. | Identifies which zone is dragging. Most diagnostic value, especially for AU Remote and US ground long-haul. |
| Failed Deliveries | Failed-and-eventually-delivered parcels also count as late. | Failed-delivery climb tracking late-count climb = recipient/address issue, not network. |
| Returned to Sender | RTO is the alternate ending for non-delivery. | Both rising = network is dropping parcels (theft hotspots, capacity pressure). |
Cross-connector: shopify.unfulfilled_orders | Upstream pressure. | Slow Shopify-to-Sendle handoff compresses transit time and raises late count. |
Cross-connector: shopify.refund_rate | Downstream impact. | 5+ percentage point share-of-late rise typically precedes refund rate climb at 7 to 14 days. |
| Cross-connector: shipping-fee revenue in checkout | Trade-off context. | Customers pay flat shipping; if late share is high but checkout copy is generous, customer satisfaction can hold even at higher operational lateness. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Sendle’s own dashboard: Sendle Dashboard → My Sendles with the Late deliveries filter. The filter shows the per-parcel late list with original ETA, actual delivery date, and zone. The closest like-for-like view is Filter: Late, Last 7 Days. Sendle does not currently expose a count widget on the home dashboard; the filter list is the canonical source. Why our number may legitimately differ from Sendle’s portal:| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| ETA window edge | Either | Sendle’s portal sometimes uses ETA midpoint as “expected”; the card uses the upper bound. Edge-cases (delivered exactly at upper bound) classify differently. |
| Failed-and-recovered | Ours sometimes higher | A parcel that was delivery-failed once and eventually delivered counts as late if the eventual delivery exceeds ETA. Sendle’s portal sometimes excludes recovered parcels from the late list. |
| Timezone | Boundary days off | Sendle portal defaults to AEST (AU) or PT (US); the card defaults to UTC. Boundary day shifts of a few hours. |
| In-transit exclusion | Both exclude | Parcels still in transit are out of both numerator and denominator until terminal status arrives. |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
shopify.unfulfilled_orders | Upstream input. Shopify hands orders to Sendle via webhook; lag is typically <1 hour. | Manual booking outside Sendle, B2B flows. |
| Customer NPS / ratings | Downstream sentiment. | Survey lag of weeks; late-count is a leading indicator. |
| Australia Post tracking (for non-Sendle parcels) | Peer measurement on parallel volume only. Sendle and Australia Post are independent populations. | Different orders, not reconciled. |