How Barcode Scanning Solves Package Visibility for Last Mile Couriers

78% of shoppers prioritize next-day delivery when they’re shopping online.

Which means retailers need a last mile delivery partner who can meet that demand with every package.

And that leaves you needing to maximize efficiency across your operations—or risk losing contracts.

That’s where barcode scanning comes in.

It’s saved Circuit for Teams users 1.5 minutes per package (more on how later).

And it does that by solving the visibility problem…

The Visibility Problem in Last Mile Delivery

If I asked you where a package your team is delivering today is right now, how long would it take you to tell me?

And could you be absolutely certain you were giving me the right answer?

The honest answer is that, without barcode scanning in place, you’ve got limited visibility over where a given package is in the delivery process.

Which means you don’t have a trail of accountability to point to during disputes over lost packages.

Whether your packages turn up at all is at the whim of human error, too. Typos and mislabelings account for who knows how many lost packages a day across all the delivery companies still manually inputting package information.

And when packages go missing, your dispatchers have to spend their time going down blind alleys ringing retailers and drivers to track them down. Inevitably, no one they ring ever takes accountability for losing the package.

Impact on Last Mile Courier Operations

The costs of running a last mile delivery business have never been higher.

Neither have consumers’ expectations.

You simply don’t have margin for these kinds of errors.

A lost parcel means a dispatcher taking time out of their work day to chase drivers and update spreadsheets.

Every misdelivery and re-delivery attempt eats into your profit margins.

And the more packages get misplaced on your watch, the less likely your clients are going to be to want to continue working with you.

Barcode scanning can help solve all those problems. Let’s look at how.

How Barcode Scanning Addresses Package Visibility

Barcode scanning can help you resolve disputes over lost packages, reduce errors and misdeliveries, empower your drivers to create their own routes, and more.

Here’s how:

Chain of Custody

Disputes over lost packages can be costly.

Especially if you can’t prove your company isn’t at fault.

Barcode scanning helps you quickly resolve disputes by giving you a digital trail of accountability you can point to when there’s a dispute over who’s liable for a lost package.

The barcode of every package is scanned at each handoff stage. And that’s all recorded in Circuit For Teams.

This keeps everyone in the chain accountable, as there’s a transparent source of truth that can show exactly where the package got misplaced.

This is all done automatically, too. Which means your dispatchers don’t have to waste time picking up the phone with your client to locate the package. You can pinpoint exactly where it slipped through the cracks in minutes.

Without barcode scanning, you’ll never be able to conclusively prove your company isn’t the one who lost a package during a dispute.

With it, the whole supply chain is a lot more transparent from beginning to end.

Driver Autonomy & Route Creation

Dispatchers uploading stops and distributing routes to drivers stops cutting it when your company hits a certain size. If your team receives multiple thousands of orders every day then your drivers are going to need to set their own routes.

And barcode scanning does just that.

It enables your drivers to scan barcoded packages that are matched against package details uploaded by the courier. These scanned packages translate into stops that are distributed into routes and assigned to drivers.

This makes route planning a lot more efficient and flexible across your whole organisation.

Real-Time Status Updates

Every last mile delivery company dreads a call from a customer asking where their package is.

Barcode scanning helps make those a thing of the past.

It keeps dispatchers, customers, and e-commerce platforms updated on exactly where a package is—and when the customer can expect to receive it.

Drivers can then scan the barcode when they arrive and mark the delivery as successful or failed. That triggers automated notifications that keep everyone notified of what’s happened with the package.

Error Reduction & Operational Efficiency

Barcode scanning helps your drivers make sure they have the right package in hand at every moment.

They’ll get an error message if they scan the barcode of a package they’re not supposed to be sorting, loading, or delivering.

This makes drivers’ job easier, which helps keep your team happy and productive.

Barcode Scanning’s ROI

“At Canpar, our switch to barcode scanning reduced driver check-in and package reconciliation by an average of 1.5 minutes per package. Over 100 packages a day, that amounts to 150 minutes saved—nearly 2.5 hours—every day in just one depot.” — Alex Maxey, Senior QA Manager at Circuit and Ex-Courier

Barcode scanning can save you minutes for every single stop.

Add the number of errors and misdeliveries it helps your drivers avoid and they’ll each be able to fit in dozens more deliveries every day.

Practical Steps for Implementing Barcode Scanning

Want to quickly start seeing the kind of ROI Alex enjoyed at Canpar?

Here’s how to make sure implementing barcode scanning in your business goes as smoothly as possible.

Redesign Your Workflows

Barcode scanning empowers your drivers to create their own optimised routes in minutes.

But it might require you to rethink your workflows.

With barcode scanning in place, drivers simply scan packages with the Circuit app. This automatically adds the stop to their route (along with all of the associated stop details, like the recipient’s name and phone number).

Your drivers then scan the package again upon delivery to mark it as delivered (or to flag that the delivery wasn’t successful).

No more uploading addresses to a route manually or fumbling through a list of stops to check off each one as it's completed. Circuit’s barcode scanning feature automates it all.

Get The Right Tools For The Job

Circuit lets your drivers use their phone to scan packages, create routes, react to updates in real-time, and share proof of delivery.

Everything they need is right there on their phone in an app Capterra users agree is incredibly easy-to-use:

Train your team

Changing the way your team works is never easy—even when you’re helping make their jobs easier.

Focus your training around avoiding these common pitfalls to make sure adapting barcode scanning goes as smoothly as possible for your team:

• Damaged barcodes. What should a team member do if they can’t scan a barcode?
• Getting late adopters on board. Not everyone on your team is going to be tech-savvy. Spending some time walking these teammates through the benefits that barcode scanning are going to bring them will go a long way.
• Integration challenges. It might take some doing to get a separate barcode scanner to play nice with your existing TMS. However, choosing Circuit for Teams solves that problem, as our barcode scanner is part of our platform—no messy integrations needed.

Measuring Success

How do you know if implementing barcode scanning has been a success?

Here are three metrics you can use to quickly tell if barcode scanning is something you should stick with:

• Step-by-step timing. Does barcode scanning make your drivers more efficient? And what’s the estimated ROI on those time savings?
• Errors and failed deliveries. Has barcode scanning reduced the amount of errors and failed deliveries in your business? What’s the ROI on those?
• Driver satisfaction. How do your drivers feel about having to use barcode scanning? If you’ve got evidence it’s making them more efficient and reducing the number of errors they have to deal with, you might be able to convince any skeptics of the benefits.

The Future of Barcode Scanning in Last Mile Delivery

The future of barcode scanning is more information in fewer scans.

Here at Circuit, we’re working on empowering your drivers to register the position of the packages in their vehicle. This will help them quickly find the right package when they arrive at a stop.

And down the line we’re planning on introducing features like:

• Bulk scanning
• QR code integration
• Damage detection
• Grouping packages or multi-stop deliveries

These will all help create greater visibility—and unlock more efficiency—in your last mile delivery operation.

Bake barcode scanning into your processes now and you’ll benefit from these features as soon as they’re live.

Get Started With Barcode Scanning Today

Want to end disputes over lost packages, reduce errors and redeliveries across your business, and empower your drivers to quickly create their own routes?

Then it’s time to integrate barcode scanning into your last mile delivery operations.

Start your 7-day free trial of Circuit for Teams—no credit card needed—and find out how our all in one, easy-to-use last mile platform can transform your business.