5 Tips to Reduce Shipment Delays this Christmas

The festive season is fast approaching and online users should start their Christmas shopping to ensure their parcel arrives in time for the special date.

COVID restrictions, higher than normal parcel volumes, labour shortages and industrial actions have recently caused shipment delays and have become the biggest nightmare for merchants, especially now that peak season is here and has arrived earlier than any other year.

We've put together some tips to reduce shipment delays during the holiday season:

How you can Reduce Parcel Delivery Delays

1- Prepare your Parcel

Packaging your parcel and labelling properly can help ship your orders without disruptions:

• Use the right size box to ensure your products are packaged securely. If you use satchels to ship your orders, make sure you don't overload them and remember to stick the label on a flat side.
• Use strong boxes to protect your items from impact, wrap your products and add extra material to fill the void and stop your items from moving within the box.
• Seal the box with strong tape without over sealing it, in case your parcel needs to be opened by customs authorities or inspected at collection.
• Securely attached your shipping label. Wrinkled, torn or distorted labels will affect transit time, especially if they can't be scanned. If you would like to easily print your label with a 6x4 Thermal Label Printer, watch this video to know how:

• Check our Prohibited and Restricted items guide before booking with us, otherwise you could face surcharges, delays or confiscation by authorities.
• Sort your parcels from Standard to Express Delivery and small to large to ensure your parcels go to the right facility.

2- Allow Time for Fulfillment Handling

Keep in mind the transit times are taking longer than any other peak season in the past. Think about the time you will spend preparing your parcels and fulfillment process. If you are concerned because the parcel didn't arrive to its destination on time, allow aproximately 4 to 5 extra business days before raising an enquiry. High volumes of chats, calls and emails creates long customer service queues. Consider emailing our customer service team for non-urgent queries.

3- Communicate with your Customers

• Effective communication and transparency with your customer is key during this time of the year. Make cutoff dates available to make your customers aware of the latest possible order dates to ensure their presents arrive in time for Christmas. Communicate shipment delays and set realistic expectations.


• Be realistic. If they order a standard delivery which prior to the pandemic was taking 2-3 days to be delivered, it would most likely take longer these days. Inform them of processing times, costs, transit time and returns. Check your shipping and return policies to see if they need to be updated.


• Don't be afraid of showing the human side of your business, tell them why fulfilment times are taking longer. If you have a small team working on Christmas orders, say it and ask for their understanding and patience.


• Offer live tracking information after processing their order. It will help your customer be aware of where their parcel is at all times and therefore reduce enquiries about shipment delays and minimise shopper anxiety. With our Branded Tracking tool you will be able to personalise your tracking page and make it consistent with your brand. Watch how you can customise our tracking page here:




You can use this type of communication as a digital marketing practise to create a sense of urgency and boost your sales. You may want to launch banner, post and email reminders and alerts to get your orders earlier.




4- Offer a Variety of Courier Services

By offering different courier services to your customers, you will increase your capabilities to ship successfully and on time. Using a multi-carrier solution like Interparcel to ship your online orders will help you choose the best courier service based on parcel size, location and type of service and will help you avoid having to deal directly with the courier company.

We've done all the hard work for you, take advantage of our pre-negotiated rates to ship satchels and freight of different sizes. If you don't have an online store, check our Australian postage Calculator to get a quote from the largest choice of courier services.




5- Fulfil your Orders from Just One Place

Reduce your shipping process time by using Interparcel's Shipping Manager to streamline your orders from one place. You can import them from multiple leading ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, ebay and Amazon, amongst others, and manage your shipping process from our platform without extra fees or subscriptions. Our Shipping Manager allows you to automate the allocation to specific carriers and optimise time, cost and reliability.

By offering Live Shipping Rates you will also give full transparency on transit times, shipping costs and gives your client the option to choose an express delivery to get their order faster.

Sending Presents Worldwide




With airline rules constantly changing, it's no wonder that some of us may not feel safe to travel abroad this summer. If you have a gift to send to Europe or an order to fulfil for a customer in the US, we have a range of trusted international couriers, such as DHL ecommerce, UPS and Fedex, who can get your order from door to door.

Of course, sending a parcel abroad comes with some extra paperwork, but we make the booking process as simple as possible. When you book with Interparcel, we provide you with the customs documents you will need. All of our services also come with a level of transit cover of $100, but when shipping expensive Christmas gifts, it's worth opting for a higher level of protection. You will be able to add this amount to the booking process for a small fee. Remember Prohibited and Restricted items are excluded.

Watch Out for Those Cutoff Dates!

Don't leave your shipping until last minute! Each courier's requirements differs slightly and international shipments need to be sent earlier than most domestic deliveries. Check our last posting dates to ensure your parcel arrives in time!

Get ahead of the season of gifting and create an account with us today. It is simple, quick, and free!