How Online Shipment Tracking Works: A Guide for eCommerce Sellers

Every time you ship an order, you want to know where it is and when it will reach your customer. That’s where online shipment tracking helps.

Each shipment gets a unique tracking number, also called an AWB (Air Waybill) number. As the parcel moves from pickup to delivery, the courier updates its location and delivery status. These updates help you and your customers track the order without having to call the courier.

But what happens when a shipment gets delayed or the tracking status doesn’t change for days?

For an eCommerce seller, this can mean more customer calls, delivery complaints, and even canceled orders. Understanding how shipment tracking works can help you spot delays early, keep customers informed, and handle delivery issues before they become bigger problems.

In this guide, we’ll explain how online shipment tracking works, what different tracking statuses mean, and how you can manage shipments more easily.

What is online shipment tracking and why should sellers care?

Online shipment tracking is the process of following a parcel from pickup to delivery using its AWB (air waybill) number and showing the live status to you and your customer.

For a seller, it is more than a courtesy. It is an early warning system. A parcel that sits at a hub for 48 hours is a future NDR (non-delivery report), and an ignored NDR often turns into an RTO. According to Shipway, more than 30% of COD orders land in the RTO category, so catching trouble early protects your margin.

Online shipment tracking makes daily work easier for your teams:

• Customer Support: Customers can check their order status themselves, reducing “Where is my order?” calls.

• Operations: Your team can quickly identify delayed or stuck shipments and follow up with the courier.

• Finance: Your team can track delivered COD orders and check which payments are due from courier partners.

How does online shipment tracking work step by step?

Here is the journey of one parcel:

AWB generation – When you book a shipment, the courier issues a unique AWB number linked to your order ID.

Pickup scan –  The courier executive scans the parcel at your warehouse. This is the first tracking event.

Hub and transit scans – Every sorting hub, line haul movement and destination hub adds a scan with a timestamp and location.

Tracking Updates –  Whenever a parcel is scanned, the courier shares the latest shipment status with your shipping platform through an API. This helps you and your customers track the parcel’s movement. Some courier partners update the status immediately, while others may take longer to reflect the latest information.

Status mapping –  Every courier uses different status wording. Your platform converts them into one standard set, so “OFD” from one courier and “Out for Delivery” from another look identical.

Display and alerts –  The status appears on your dashboard and branded tracking page, and goes to buyers on WhatsApp, SMS and email.

Exception handling –  If delivery fails, the status changes to undelivered with a reason code, which starts your NDR workflow.

What do common tracking statuses mean for your operations?

• Picked up: The courier has the parcel. Check that the scan matches your dispatch manifest.
• In Transit: Your parcel is on its way to the next delivery hub. If the tracking status hasn’t changed for more than 48 hours, check with the courier for an update.
• Out for Delivery: Your parcel is expected to reach the customer today. For COD orders, remind customers to keep their phones available and payment ready.
• Undelivered or NDR: The courier couldn’t deliver the parcel. Contact the customer as soon as possible to understand the issue and arrange another delivery attempt.
• RTO initiated: The parcel is coming back. Review the reason and fix the pattern.
• Delivered: Trigger your review request and track the COD remittance cycle.

Why does tracking get stuck, and how do you fix it?

There are several reasons why your shipment tracking status may not update on time:

1. Missed Hub Scan: Sometimes, a parcel reaches the next courier hub but is not scanned. This means the shipment has moved, but its tracking status still shows the previous location.
2. Delayed Courier Updates: Sometimes, the courier scans the parcel, but the updated information takes time to appear on the tracking platform. As a result, sellers and customers may not see the latest shipment status immediately.
3. Incorrect Address or PIN Code: An incomplete address or incorrect PIN code can cause shipments to get stuck at a delivery hub.
4. Festive Season or Weekend Delays: During busy periods, courier hubs handle large shipment volumes, which can delay parcel movement and tracking updates.
5. Multiple Parcels in One Order: When products from the same order are shipped in separate parcels, they may reach the customer at different times. Tracking each parcel using its AWB number helps sellers identify which products have been delivered and which are still in transit or delayed.

SKU-level tracking helps sellers track individual products when an order is shipped in multiple parcels. By linking each product to its shipment’s AWB number, sellers can easily check which products have been delivered, which are still in transit, and which are delayed. This also helps provide accurate delivery updates to customers.

Also, make it a practice to check shipments that haven’t received a tracking update for 48 hours. Flag these orders and follow up with the courier to understand the reason for the delay.

What should sellers monitor beyond the AWB status?

Here are three simple ways to track shipments and manage delivery delays:

1. Monitor Shipment Performance: Review your delivery reports regularly to check how long couriers take to deliver orders and how often they succeed on the first attempt. This helps you identify courier partners and PIN codes where delays are common.
2. Check for Delays: Look for shipments that haven’t had a tracking update in 48 hours, orders that couldn’t be delivered, and COD orders where the customer hasn’t confirmed their availability.
3. Follow Up on Orders: Contact the courier to check on delayed shipments. If a delivery has failed, speak with the customer to understand the reason and arrange another delivery attempt.

For example: A home decor brand ships 300 orders every day through three courier partners. While checking its delivery reports, the team finds that one courier regularly takes more than four days to deliver orders to certain Tier 3 PIN codes.

To avoid further delays, the brand starts assigning orders from those PIN codes to a better-performing courier.

Instead of checking courier performance and assigning orders manually, sellers can use tools like ShipSense AI to automatically select suitable courier partners based on delivery performance, cost, and other shipping factors.

How does a branded tracking page help eCommerce sellers?

A courier’s tracking link sends your buyer to someone else’s brand, ads and phone number. A branded tracking page keeps the buyer on your own domain.

Shipway Delight hosts tracking on your site with your logo and theme. Buyers can request a delivery reattempt, start a return, view proof of delivery and see product recommendations from the same page. It also shows an estimated delivery date to set expectations. Shipway states that proactive notifications across SMS, WhatsApp and email reduce WISMO queries by up to 40 to 60%. Bummer, a Shipway customer, improved its delivery rate and reduced RTO by 67%.

For more detail, read our guide on what a branded tracking page is.

How can you track shipments from multiple couriers in one place?

Once you use more than one courier, you deal with different portals, formats and status names. A single order tracking system fixes this by pulling every AWB into one view. Shipway connects with 20+ courier partners and covers 19,000+ pin codes, so AWB tracking for every parcel sits in one dashboard. 

For setup, see our guides on multi-courier shipment tracking and automated shipment tracking.

When you evaluate shipment tracking software, ask whether it uses courier APIs, whether you can customize notification triggers, whether it connects to NDR and returns, and whether it shows courier wise performance.

Ready to see it live? Explore Shipway’s tracking and notifications.