As an ecommerce merchant, it can be frustrating to deal with factors beyond your control, like market conditions, new technologies, and geopolitical events. In the short term, factors such as weather conditions, holidays, and other disruptions can interrupt your business too—particularly the shipping process. When these factors cause delivery delays for purchases, shipping carriers refer to them as delivery exceptions.
If mismanaged, delivery exceptions can negatively impact the customer experience. With one 2024 survey reporting that nearly two-thirds of online shoppers expect to receive their purchases within 24 hours, customer expectations around delivery timelines continue to increase. If delivery exceptions cause your products to arrive late, you risk impacting customer loyalty, hurting your brand reputation, and losing money to redeliveries and refunds.
Understanding the issues that cause delivery exceptions and strategies to mitigate them can help you maintain timely delivery and manage customer expectations.
What is a delivery exception?
Delivery exceptions, also known as shipment exceptions, are unexpected issues in the delivery process caused by human error or external factors like weather or holidays. When a delivery exception occurs, the shipping carrier provides a status update to the shipper (like an ecommerce merchant) as well as the recipient (like a customer waiting for their online order to arrive). There are a few common delivery exceptions that shipping carriers experience, including:
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Missed deliveries. A failed delivery can occur when a recipient is unavailable to sign for it or an office building is closed at the time of the attempted delivery.
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Delivery refusals. This type of delivery exception can happen when a package arrives at the wrong address or in poor condition.
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Delayed shipments. Deliveries can be delayed due to a variety of causes, including a busy season, bad weather, or an unreadable shipping label.
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Lost or stolen packages. If a delivery is accidentally lost or stolen during the delivery process, this can result in a delivery exception.
A delivery exception doesn’t always impact the delivery time frame of a shipment. For example, a delivery can still arrive on time during weather conditions like rain or snow. In that case, the exception notice to all parties would be that a delay may occur.
8 causes of delivery exceptions
The causes of delivery exceptions can range from heavy traffic and paperwork problems to unruly dogs and unreadable addresses. Here are eight factors that can cause delivery exceptions:
1. Weather. Severe weather conditions like thunderstorms and tornadoes can cause delivery exceptions.
2. Traffic. Unusually heavy traffic can slow down shipping and trigger delivery exceptions.
3. Incomplete/incorrect information. Packages labeled with incorrect address information can be sent back or refused, turning them into delivery exceptions.
4. Holidays and peak seasons. A national holiday like Christmas Day or a peak season like Black Friday or Cyber Monday can cause delivery exceptions.
5. Customer unavailability. If a delivery driver cannot make contact with a recipient for a package that requires a proof of delivery signature, it can result in a delivery exception.
6. Customs delays. International shipments with missing documentation or incorrect traffic codes can become delivery exceptions.
7. Undecipherable labels. A delivery exception can occur if a package has a shipping label that is difficult to read or scratched out from damage during the delivery process.
8. Animal interference. Aggressive dogs or wildlife accidents on a delivery route can create delivery exceptions as well.
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Tips to avoid delivery exceptions
- Confirm addresses
- Use weather-resistant labels
- Work with reliable carriers
- Provide accurate delivery time frame
The best way to handle delivery exceptions is to communicate with your customers clearly and promptly to manage their expectations. If you want to minimize delivery exceptions with your order fulfillment process, here are a few best practices to consider:
Confirm addresses
Take the time to review customer orders and confirm that a shipping address is correct. For example, you may look up a recipient’s address to discover that the city and state of a customer in the United States do not coincide with the ZIP code associated with that area. These discrepancies can cause delivery exceptions by confusing shipping carriers’ systems and potentially sending packages to an incorrect location, which can result in the need to redeliver or refund online orders.
Use weather-resistant labels
As packages make their way through the delivery process to an end customer, they often go through multiple shipping vehicles and warehouses. If labels are unreadable, packages will likely encounter delivery exceptions. Use weather-resistant labels made with durable materials like non-tear plastic or UV-resistant ink to help protect important names, addresses, and barcodes required for successful delivery.
Work with reliable carriers
Choose major carriers with a good reputation for making deliveries on time. Working with a network of reliable shipping carriers who have high coverage in the areas where your customers live can help prevent delivery exceptions. Although all shipping carriers experience delivery exceptions, you can minimize your chances by choosing shipping partners that have a good track record and a wide fleet in your area.
Shopify merchants have access to Shopify’s built-in shipping software called Shopify Shipping, which allows companies to control their order fulfillment process from one easy dashboard. You can use this tool to automatically connect to leading shipping carriers for domestic and international shipments, including DHL, FedEx, and UPS, and take advantage of discounted rates.
Provide accurate delivery time frames
Providing accurate delivery windows for customers before and after they’ve completed their final purchase can improve customer satisfaction by properly setting expectations. As soon as you discover that one of your company’s shipments is experiencing a delivery exception, communicate promptly with customers to give them an updated delivery status and a new delivery date.
Though a delivery exception doesn’t always lead to delayed delivery, it’s nonetheless important to keep an eye on them and provide proactive updates to customers to avoid frustration or confusion. When possible, provide customers with tracking links with real-time updates so they can stay in the loop without needing to reach out to your company for updates and assistance.
What is a delivery exception FAQ
What is a UPS delivery exception?
A UPS delivery “exception” means your UPS shipment experienced an unexpected error that may result in a change in delivery schedule.
What is a USPS delivery exception?
A USPS delivery exception is a temporary delay in a delivery from the United States Postal Service due to factors like missing or incorrect shipping labels and high-volume shipping seasons like holidays.
What is a FedEx delivery exception?
A FedEx delivery exception is a status update that means your package is temporarily delayed in transit because of unavoidable circumstances like extreme weather or a natural disaster.
How long is a delivery exception?
A delivery exception can result in packages arriving on the same delivery date they were expected on, although it can also result in a delay from one to several days depending on the cause of the delivery exception.
