A look back at a transitional year
This article is a dated retrospective. It looks back at 2023, a year many shippers remember as one of adjustment. The unusual demand of the pandemic years was fading in many markets, carriers were rebalancing capacity they had built up, and inflation had pushed up costs for fuel, packaging and labour. The mistakes below are tied to those conditions. Specific figures varied by country and carrier, so this piece sticks to general patterns, and readers should check their own records for what applied to them.
1. Planning as if the pandemic surge would continue
During the pandemic period, online order volumes rose quickly in many places, and businesses added space, staff and contracts to cope. In 2023 many saw growth slow or volumes settle below those peaks. Shippers who kept forecasting from the highest recent months risked carrying more warehouse space, packaging stock and committed carrier volume than they needed.
The lesson that outlasted the year is to base plans on a range of scenarios, not on the latest peak. Contracts with volume commitments need particular care, since falling short of a commitment can reduce discounts or flexibility. Regularly revisiting forecasts, and keeping some capacity flexible, remains sound practice. This links to the wider theme of economic uncertainty, which affects what customers buy and how fast they expect it.
2. Accepting rate increases without checking them
Carriers announced general price increases for 2023, as they usually do, and many businesses simply absorbed them. Increases of a few percentage points on the headline rate can be amplified by changes to surcharges, minimum charges and dimensional weight rules, so the real change in cost per parcel may differ from the announced figure.
Shippers who compared their actual invoices year on year, by service and zone, were better placed to see what had changed. Asking questions, reviewing contract terms and testing alternatives such as regional carriers could improve the position, although carriers were not always willing to move. Treat this as a recurring task: annual rate increases arrive every year, and the sound response is the same each time.
3. Relying on one carrier with no fallback
Labour disputes, weather and network strain were reminders in 2023, as in other years, that a single carrier is a single point of failure. Large carrier labour negotiations in particular led many shippers to think about contingency planning, and a number of businesses considered shifting a share of volume to other providers as a precaution. Whether a dispute leads to disruption is never certain in advance, which is exactly why a plan matters.
A business that had no second option, no integration with another carrier and no draft customer message was left reacting. Even a modest fallback, such as an account with a second provider and tested label setup, reduces the risk. Multi-carrier shipping adds some complexity, but the cost is often smaller than a few days of stalled dispatch.
4. Chasing the lowest price at the expense of service
Cost pressure led some shippers to choose the cheapest option for everything, including time-sensitive and fragile orders. Slower economy services can suit non-urgent, durable goods, but applying them to everything risks late deliveries and complaints. In a year when customers had many choices and watched their spending, a poor delivery experience could push them elsewhere.
The more lasting approach is to match service levels to the product and the promise: faster where the customer pays for speed or the item is urgent, cheaper where timing is flexible. Check that checkout estimates reflect the slower options. Mismatched promises were a recurring source of complaints.
5. Neglecting returns and customer communication
As spending tightened, shoppers returned more and watched delivery performance more closely, and returns remained a significant cost for many online sellers. Businesses that treated returns as an afterthought, with unclear policies, manual processes and slow refunds, found them costly. Others sent too few updates about delays and left customers uncertain.
Clear returns policies, consistent inspection and timely refunds helped, as did proactive delay messages. Good communication costs little compared with the contact volume that silence creates.
What still applies
Some of these mistakes belonged to the moment: the pandemic hangover is no longer the main influence. Others, such as over-forecasting, unchecked increases, single-carrier dependence, mismatched service levels and weak returns handling, are standing risks that return in different forms each year. Reading this list as a template for reviewing your own arrangements, and not as a record of one year’s events, makes it more useful. Conditions will keep changing, and no forecast, including those made in 2023, is reliable enough to build a whole plan around.