Blondies Bakes review for Parcel Panel Order Tracking

Sept. 13, 2024

Was really excited to download this app, the customer service from outset was really good and we had high hopes. On paper the app offered all the functionality we needed as we wanted to start proactively notifying customers by email when their parcels were out for delivery, delivered, and if there was a failed delivery (proactively notifying the customers so they could re-book delivery with the carrier). However, only when starting to use the app did it become apparent there were a number of shortfalls. The first being that Parcel Panel shipping data can lag the carrier data by up to 6 hours. This wouldn’t necessarily be an issue, however the “Track my Parcel” button contained in the Parcel Panel emails sent to customers (out for delivery, parcel delivered, failed delivery etc) can only be linked to the Parcel Panel tracking page (the one that uses 6hr lagging data) and not directly to the Carrier Tracking Page on the carrier website (which uses real time tracking data). What does this mean, well if a customer clicks “Track my Parcel” from a Parcel Panel email, the data they see may be up to 6hours out of date. Not ideal. The approach of only linking the “Track my Parcel” button to the Parcel Panel tracking page and not the Carrier Tracking Page also poses a problem when a customer receives a failed delivery email from Parcel Panel, as rebooking a missed delivery can only be done via the carrier website which cannot be accessed by the email sent. This one of the major issues for us as we'd be essentially sending a missed delivery email to our customers highlighting that they needed to rebook delivery for another day, however they would have no ability to rebook their missed delivery from the email we sent. Not good customer experience, particularly for a customer who has missed delivery of their parcel. I did pose a simple solution to Parcel panel, asking them if Shopify Merchants could be given the option to choose whether the “Track my Parcel” button in the Parcel Panel emails goes directly to the Parcel Panel tracking page or the Carrier’s Tracking page. Even with the missed delivery example above considered, the request was rejected by the team stating that the App's aim is to keep customers in its own eco-system. More broadly, while it is possible to use Shopify’s native email notifications in place of Parcel Panel’s (out for delivery, delivered) - these emails cannot be configured to use Parcel Panel’s variables meaning delivery data contained in the email is basic a not as much of a value add to customers. Please note this point is not a limitation on Parcel Panel’s side but worth noting as it’s the only alternative to the Parcel Panel emails. I don’t like to leave negative reviews however I wanted to make others aware of the limitations as we didn’t identify these until we had invested a significant amount of time setting the system up. Only when it’s live and active do you see the shortfalls.