At a glance
Absolute count of Shippo-printed shipments that delivered after the carrier’s eta, or are still in-transit past their promised date. The numerator side of On-Time Delivery Rate, surfaced as a count rather than a percentage so a small number of late parcels is still visible on a 100k-shipment-per-week store.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Shippo 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 US DTC homewares brand on Shopify, shipping ~700 parcels per week through Shippo, mostly via USPS Priority Mail with Commercial Plus, plus UPS Ground for parcels over 5 lb. Reading taken at 09:00 ET on Friday 13 Mar 26 for the trailing 7 days (06 Mar 26 to 12 Mar 26).
The card reads 43 late shipments with the alert at
>5% of total tripped (43 / 710 = 6.1%). Five things to notice:
- USPS Ground Advantage is the disproportionate driver. 22 of the 43 late shipments came from a service representing 25% of weekly volume but 51% of lateness. The rate-shopper should be biased away from Ground Advantage on long-zone deliveries this week.
- The count is sensitive to in-transit overdues, not just delivered-late. Of the 43, roughly 12 are in-transit past
etaand may still arrive on Monday. The number can drop on its own as those parcels deliver. Re-read in 48 hours before acting. - Day-of-week skews the read. Friday morning catches the Monday-Tuesday measurement bulge from weekend-printed Priority Mail labels that did not move until Monday’s first scan. Reading on Wednesday gives a calmer view of carrier-side late counts.
- Cross-reference with Exception Rate. If exception count is also up, late count is consequence; if exceptions are flat but late count is up, the issue is service-level mismatch (wrong service for the zone) rather than network disruption.
- The 43 late parcels each carry a refund-risk tail. If the brand’s customer-service team treats a 2-day late delivery as eligible for a 5 = $215 of margin at risk this week. Use this card for triage volume, not just OTD percentage.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Late count is a triage signal. Pair it with these to act on it:Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Shippo’s own dashboard: Shippo App → Orders → Filter “Late”. The closest like-for-like view is All Carriers, Last 7 Days, Status: Delivered Late OR In-Transit Past ETA. Shippo’s report renders a count tile and a per-shipment table. Use the table for individual customer-service triage; use this card for trend. Why our number may legitimately differ from Shippo’s report:
Cross-connector reconciliation:
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Late count is up but OTD percentage is flat. What is happening? Volume grew. The percentage stays steady because numerator and denominator both rose; the count grows because shipments grew. This is normal and not an alarm. Look at Shipments alongside; if shipments are up 30% and late count is up 30%, business as usual. Late count is up and OTD percentage is also down. What is the root cause? Three usual culprits, in order of likelihood:- Carrier-network disruption. Weather event, USPS sortation backlog, FedEx labour action. Check Exception Rate and the carrier’s own news page.
- Service-mix shift. Did Ground Advantage volume rise as a share of total? It runs 5 to 10 points lower OTD than Priority Mail. Check Shipments by Service.
- Cutoff drift. Are warehouse staff missing the 16:00 USPS pickup more often? A label printed at 17:00 misses the day-zero scan and shows late on the next-business-day measurement.
now() > eta and not yet at terminal status counts as late. This catches the “carrier network is backed up right now” signal early, before parcels actually deliver late. The count can fall back as those parcels deliver, even if they delivered on the next day.
How does Commercial Plus pricing affect the count?
It does not. Commercial Plus is a label-cost discount, not a service tier. A parcel sent at Commercial Plus rates moves through the same network as a retail-rate parcel. The cost saving in Avg Shipping Cost is real; it does not buy faster delivery.
Why is the alert at 5% of total and not an absolute threshold?
Volume varies by merchant. A 50-late-out-of-1000 alert (5%) is the same severity as 5-late-out-of-100 (5%) for triage purposes. An absolute threshold (“alert if late count > 50”) would never trip for small merchants and would always trip for large ones. The percentage threshold scales naturally.
Q4 / BFCM, the count tripled. Should I disable the alert?
Better: raise the threshold for the season. Recommend >10% for 25 Nov 25 to 5 Jan 26, then revert. Disabling alerts entirely loses the signal of a peak-on-peak event (a network outage during BFCM week). Adjust thresholds, do not silence.
Late vs failed, what is the difference?
Late (this card) = arrived after eta. Failed (Failed Deliveries) = never arrived: returned-to-sender, lost in network, refused at door, address invalid. Both create CS load; failed is usually more expensive per case (refund or reship). Track separately.