Remember the days before real-time shipment tracking? Probably not worth thinking about. People used to just hand high-value consignments over to the courier and just hope for the best. With online shopping making up an increasing share of sales, freight and parcel delivery has thankfully become a much more precise and data-driven.
According to Australia Post, e-commerce accounted for approximately 17.7%-22.3% of all retail sales in 2024. This change in consumer behaviour has led to a boom in shipping and delivery services, while customer expectations around shipping and delivery updates have grown significantly. Customers expect up-to-date information, accurate tracking numbers, real-time delivery status updates, and a seamless tracking experience across multiple carriers. A staggering 45% of shoppers track their parcels, and making this a simple and convenient process is top of their list.
So, is shipment tracking standard now? Kind of. However, not all tracking systems are created equal. Not every carrier provides real-time updates, and not every business offers a simple and convenient way for customers to track their packages. This blog explores the importance of real-time shipment tracking, how it works, and how it differs for B2B and B2C deliveries.
Contents:
- What is Shipment Tracking?
- How Does Real-Time Shipment Tracking Work?
- Benefits of Real-Time Shipment Tracking
- What’s the Difference Between Tracking For B2B and B2C Freight?
- Real-Time Shipment Tracking Solutions
What is Shipment Tracking?
Shipment tracking provides customers and businesses with up-to-date information about a parcel’s location and status. Using a tracking number, users can track their package across different delivery services and carriers, from pick-up to final delivery.
Every time a parcel passes through a logistics checkpoint — such as a depot, warehouse, or transit hub — it generates a tracking update. These updates allow senders and recipients to check the status of a package at any point in its journey.
Whether you’re shipping internationally through DHL or locally via Australia Post, real-time shipment tracking allows you to track a package and stay on top of any potential delays. It’s become a core part of the modern parcel tracking experience.
How Does Real-Time Shipment Tracking Work?
Real-time tracking uses GPS, sensors, barcode scanning, and cloud-based logistics systems to provide real-time shipment updates. When integrated into a modern freight management system, tracking information flows directly from the courier’s tracking system into a central dashboard.
Once a customer receives an order confirmation and tracking number, they can visit a branded tracking page to monitor progress. In many cases, this data is made accessible through integration with a Transport Management System (TMS), which helps streamline logistics workflows. Real-time tracking systems provide:
- Location data for each shipment
- Transit status and recent status updates
- Estimated delivery date and time
- Options for re-routing to another location
- Alerts for failed delivery or delivery confirmation
Global package tracking becomes even more critical for international delivery as packages move across various carriers. A comprehensive tracking system ensures complete visibility for businesses and peace of mind for customers.
Learn more about multi-carrier shipping
Benefits of Real-Time Shipment Tracking
- Improved visibility
- Reduction in support calls on parcel updates
- Efficiency & cost savings
- Real-time updates on delivery progress
- Improved accuracy for estimated delivery dates
- Faster resolution of delivery issues
- Stronger customer trust through reliable communication
Real-time shipment tracking provides several benefits. Obviously, it manages expectations and provides peace of mind for customers. In this sense, shipment tracking plays a key role in automating customer service.
For businesses, real-time tracking data helps them spot bottlenecks and quickly respond to disruptions. It also keeps carriers accountable. When they have visibility over delivery times and delays, business owners are in a position of power to monitor the efficiency and reliability of their carriers.
When freight carriers, businesses, and customers are all on the same page with real-time tracking data, customer loyalty, NPS, and satisfaction significantly improve.
Tips for optimising your freight management process
What’s the Difference Between Tracking For B2B and B2C Freight?
For B2C freight:
Customer experience tends to be a higher priority in B2C industries, as it’s a more intimate transaction between individuals and the goods they want. Online shopping doesn’t have the same instant gratification as buying something in-store and physically holding it at the point of sale.
Whether delivery takes 4 hours or 4 weeks, consumers still feel vulnerable until they have the product. To offset any anxiety, it’s imperative that consumers have a good experience between payment and delivery, and the only way to do that is through tracking.
It only takes one bad experience for customers to never shop with you again. They don’t necessarily need super fast delivery, but they do need reliability. Expectation management is everything. Real-time tracking, therefore, becomes extremely important for those individuals as they wait for their shipment to arrive.
For B2B freight:
B2B has traditionally been less focused on the experience and more focused on reliability. However, the expectations being set in the B2C market are filtering into customer expectations in the B2B space. It’s more about efficient supply chains and arriving on time many locations will have set docking times required and if the docking slot is missed the delivery may be delayed.
Ultimately, business customers are still people, though. Expectations and clear communication around time frames are still important, as you need to ensure teams are on hand to receive potentially large or expensive equipment deliveries. For example, that might be moving stock within the same company — from a regional storage hub to the loading docks of their various retail locations. Or it could be an equipment purchase to an area without any on-site loading facilities — where employees need to be alerted to the exact arrival time so that someone’s on hand to allow access to the building.
Either way, the visibility provided by accurate, real-time tracking is crucial to the customer experience. You might not directly win repeat business because of it, but you’ll certainly lose the chance of repeat business without it.
Real-Time Shipment Tracking Solutions
A cloud-based freight management platform brings together data from various carriers into a single dashboard. Logistics teams can track shipments, identify failed deliveries, and oversee delivery information across all service providers.
When your business is equipped with freight visibility and automated workflows, you’re empowered to work smarter and streamline costs. Some of the tangible benefits include:
- Saving money by identifying overcharges
- Saving time by automating time-consuming manual processes
- Defined workflows for lodging carrier credit requests
- Linking invoices to jobs and allocating to cost centres more easily
- Check the estimated delivery date and last-mile delivery window
- Enter your tracking number and get real-time tracking details
With a cloud-based delivery management system, you have a centralised dashboard to maintain complete oversight. This is absolutely vital for scalability, keeping you in control regardless of order volume — whether you’re experiencing high demand as your customer base grows or a relatively quiet period due to lower seasonal demand. The software pulls live data from your transport carriers to allow visibility over key milestones in the dispatch process and, crucially, the last mile of delivery — which has the biggest influence on customer satisfaction.
How MachShip Delivers Real-Time Data?
With MachShip, you can create custom in-house solutions to prioritise the data that matters most to your business. Instantly access a consolidated view of all your carriers and tracking statuses — from warehouse pick-up to final delivery.
Our consolidated ‘Active Consignment’ dashboard displays all tracking statuses for live and completed consignments.
Your customers will receive real-time email and SMS notifications to reduce delivery anxiety and update them at every stage of the journey. MachShip also enables you to provide your customers with a branded tracking page, regardless of carrier, via email or SMS to ensure a consistent customer experience decoupled from the carriers.
This real-time data allows businesses to see and solve any delivery disruptions quickly. Additionally, oversight of carrier performance is essential for informing your future carrier selection and strategy. With a dashboard like MachShip’s at your fingertips, you can instantly determine all your carriers’ DIFOT scores (delivery in full on time).
Our system allows you to track orders, reduce delivery friction, and ensure packages are delivered as expected.
Learn more about MachShip’s seamless integrations and how our real-time shipment tracking tools can streamline your operations, reduce delivery issues, and improve customer satisfaction. Whether you’re shipping locally or internationally, MachShip provides the visibility and control you need to stay competitive in today’s fast-moving e-commerce environment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you track a package in real-time?
Yes, many logistics providers and shipping companies now offer real-time tracking, allowing you to monitor the status and location of your shipment throughout the delivery journey.
What is real-time shipment tracking?
Real-time shipment tracking uses GPS, barcodes, scan events and cloud-based systems to provide up-to-date information on where your package is at any point during transit.
How can I track my courier’s live location?
If your courier supports GPS-based tracking, you can track your courier’s live location via their tracking page or app using your tracking number. Some platforms like MachShip consolidate this data across different carriers for ease.