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How Does the Parcel and Package Tracking System Work?

Have you ever wondered how the most popular delivery businesses efficiently deliver parcels without errors? Well, technology plays a crucial part, but it all comes back to the system design and its intuitive features for both mobile applications and delivery partners.

Introduction

Today, on-demand deliveries are making a lasting impression by allowing users to easily order anything. If you want to start a business managing such deliveries, you need to understand the business model effectively.

To put it simply, think about a platform dealing with connecting delivery drivers and customers. It should have different options for the user and its delivery requirements. Moreover, the platform must have different sub-components because, today, smartphones are everywhere, and there should be an app for better business expansion.

What Does Tracking a Package or a Courier Involve?

Tracking a package or courier involves following its location and movement during sorting and delivery. It helps verify where the package came from and estimate when it will be delivered. The main purpose of package tracking is to provide customers with information about the package route, delivery status, estimated delivery date, and estimated delivery time.

Here’s how a courier’s or package tracking system works:

  1. When an online customer gives a parcel delivery booking via the app to the courier company for delivery, a barcode is generated and attached to the package. The barcode has details like pickup and destination addresses and the buyer’s contact information.
  2. The courier company scans the barcode when the item is loaded for delivery. This data is stored in the courier’s tracking system.
  3. When the barcode is scanned, information about the courier is stored, like the time it left the seller’s location, where it came from, and where it’s going.
  4. The item is shipped to another courier location near the buyer.
  5. When this new location receives the item, they scan the barcode again. This stores the received time in the tracking system.
  6. At this location, the item is scanned again when it is ready to go out for final delivery. This scan logs the time it left this location.
  7. Once the item is delivered to the buyer, the tracking system is updated with the delivery status (e.g., “Delivered”), delivery time, and recipient’s name.
  8. The customer can track the package by entering the barcode number as well as seeing the live status on the app itself showing the package’s step-by-step movement.

What are the Different Features of a Courier Tracking System?

Maintenance Updates

The tracking system lets your customers monitor not just the orders but also the overall delivery performance. Moreover, it notifies the delivery service quickly if any maintenance is needed so they can keep improving the delivery process.

Update Customers on Vehicle Status

With tracking, you can monitor the vehicles carrying orders during transportation to each destination, send customers updates on the delivery time, and even track the rest stops.

Visibility and Delivery Updates

The main purpose is to keep customers informed with real-time tracking information to ease any worries about their order delivery. Getting tracking updates allows customers to stay excited about their purchase until it arrives. Transparency also builds trust and brand loyalty.

Computerized Proof-of-Delivery

After an order shows as delivered, you may want proof it was successfully completed to improve the delivery experience and reduce losses. An efficient system can automate how delivery partners provide proof of delivery. As soon as an order is delivered, you immediately get invoice to address any fake delivery reports.

Route Optimization

The route taken is very important for fast deliveries. A good tracking system analyzes data to determine the optimal route for each delivery. Tracking the vehicle route helps provide the exact delivery time to customers.

What’s Next For On-Demand Deliveries?

Before courier tracking systems existed, tracking for most online on-demand businesses handling many orders felt like finding a needle in a haystack.

Tracking gives customers peace of mind that their order will be delivered, even if it is late. Data from the tracking system can optimize operations by identifying flaws and areas for improvement in the delivery process. An efficient system allows for handling increasing order volumes and customer demands.

The benefits are significant, from reducing loss/misplacement risk to providing customers with real-time product information. This transparency enhances satisfaction and a stress-free delivery experience.

Building Your Own Tracking System or Buying a Ready-Made One?

The first step is to decide which delivery platform you are using to build your business. Today, on-demand deliveries are the face of the delivery ecosystem so you must have a mobile application ready for sending our delivery Genies or Runners for your customers.

Technically, you could have a website, but having a mobile application makes it even better for getting more orders. Therefore, a business must focus on two things: first, getting app development done right by introducing modern-day delivery methods like Genie and Runner, and second, tracking methods that allow each new delivery to be precise in order to grow successfully.

Now, designing an app that can deliver single parcels or multiple parcels to single or different addresses sounds a lot more complex in reality.

In other words, you want an admin panel, a website, mobile apps, and several different panels all at once. Developing such a diverse range of platforms will take at least one complete year from design to launch. You will have to pay proficient designers and developers, run back-and-forth tests, and even employ quality analysts for testing phases.

Luckily, there are many different mobile app development companies offering pre-built delivery apps with white-labeling services. You can simply test the ready-made app by downloading it and trying it for yourself. After you’re satisfied with it, the app developers can rebrand and customize it for your specific business needs much faster than building from the ground up.

This white-labelling approach gets your courier delivery app to market in a matter of weeks rather than over a year. It provides an affordable way to get a fully functioning, user-tested app without the heavy upfront investment of building everything yourself from scratch.

Conclusion

Package tracking relies heavily on barcodes, which are machine-readable barcodes containing crucial parcel information but an effective business model design is crucial. With smartphones being omnipresent today, your business needs robust mobile apps to make a lasting impact by allowing users to easily order anything they need to be delivered. Try to start off by getting an app with 100% licensed source code and see what kind of impact you can have within a matter of weeks!

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