What a courier actually does with your parcel: ten stages

A parcel you hand to a rider goes through ten distinct stages before it reaches a customer, and each one is a place it can stop. Knowing the stages is how you read a tracking page usefully, and how you ask a courier a question that has an answer.

What follows is the real sequence, with the control that gates each step. The examples use the QCS flow because that is the one we can describe accurately, but the shape is common to any scan-driven COD network.

Stage one: booked

The order exists, the consignee details and the COD amount are recorded, and the parcel has a tracking number. It is not going anywhere yet. A booked parcel sits with you.

Stage two: forwarded to the pickup request

This is the stage sellers forget and it is the most common cause of a parcel that never moves. A booked order is not collectable until it is forwarded to the pickup request. If you ship daily, an auto-pickup time sweeps every eligible booked order at an hour you choose, which removes the human step.

Stage three: a pickup rider is assigned

The system assigns an available pickup rider to the request, and he is told which seller to go to and what to expect. You do not have to call anyone.

Stage four: collection, by scan

The rider scans each parcel at your premises against the expected list. The scan is the control, not the conversation: no scan, no collection.

A parcel on the list that he does not receive is recorded as a failed pickup with a reason code and an optional photo, and it goes back to your booked list. You get a summary afterwards by WhatsApp and email saying what was collected and what was not. Labels and load sheets covers making that handover countable.

Stage five: inbound scan at the warehouse

Back at the warehouse in Gulberg every parcel is scanned again before it enters stock. Nothing enters stock without it. This is the point custody moves from the rider to the building, and it is what makes a later disagreement resolvable from the record.

Your customer is notified here. It is the first stage visible to anyone outside the operation.

Stage six: in warehouse stock

The parcel is held, shelved and waiting for a run. If it needs re-weighing, this is where that happens, and a re-weigh writes a fresh charge snapshot against the order while preserving the original byte for byte, so both figures stay visible to you.

Stage seven: assigned to a delivery run

The back office builds a run and assigns parcels to it. Nothing leaves for delivery without that assignment, which is the outbound counterpart of the inbound scan.

Stage eight: out for delivery

The rider sequences his own route, because he knows the roads better than a solver does. The customer is notified that the parcel is on the way, which is the message that matters most for someone actually being in.

Stage nine: the attempt

Three outcomes, and all three are recorded with evidence.

• Delivered. Proof of delivery is captured and the COD cash is collected. A parcel cannot be marked delivered without the proof, and that is refused at the data layer rather than discouraged in the interface
• On hold. Nobody answered, or the customer asked for another day. Reason code and evidence recorded
• Refused. The customer declined. Reason code and evidence recorded

A hold or a refusal sends the parcel back to the warehouse, where it is scanned in again and the attempt counter increments. Default three attempts, configurable to five. Attempts, holds and refusals covers the fork in detail.

Stage ten: settlement, or return

On delivery three things happen in one transaction: the delivery charge is computed and frozen against the parcel, a balanced double-entry journal is posted, and the seller payable is credited with the COD amount less that charge. No overnight batch, so the parcel and the statement cannot disagree.

If the attempt threshold is reached instead, the back office cancels the parcel and it is returned to the seller as RTS, through an assigned run and a handover of its own. A returned parcel carries no delivery charge, which the published tariff states as a term.

Where parcels actually get stuck

Three stages account for nearly all of it:

1. 01Stage two, because the seller never forwarded the order
2. 02Stage nine, because nobody was in and the attempt cycle is running
3. 03Stage six, when a zone could not be resolved and the parcel is waiting on a geo review decision

None of those is a lost parcel, and all three are visible on the order rather than requiring a phone call. What each parcel status means maps the statuses you will actually see to the stages above.

If you are working out what the delivery side costs before committing, the pricing calculator prices a specific parcel and the merchant signup form starts the onboarding conversation.