Ask a freight forwarder where a container is and you’ll usually get an answer. Ask where one particular carton from that container ended up after it was split off at a regional depot, and you may well get a pause.
That pause is what this article is about.
Logistics has always tracked the big things first. Containers, trailers, pallets: they’re valuable, there aren’t that many of them, and losing one is a serious matter. Individual parcels are a different story. There are far more of them and each one is usually worth less, so for a long time following every single parcel simply wasn’t practical. Barcodes and scanning stations filled the gap, and for most deliveries they still do the job.
Where Scans Fall Short
The thing about a scan is that it only tells you where a parcel was at the moment someone pointed a scanner at it. What happens next is anyone’s guess until the next checkpoint.
Most of the time, nothing happens. The parcel moves on, gets scanned again and arrives. But the gaps are where things go wrong. A parcel waits overnight at a depot. It’s handed from one carrier to another, and the two systems don’t line up. A label gets torn, or a scan gets skipped on a busy shift, and the record just stops. Nobody did anything wrong, necessarily. The system just wasn’t built to watch a single box.
When that happens, the item isn’t the only cost. Someone has to chase it. A replacement might need to go out. And the customer is left looking at a tracking page that hasn’t moved.
Why Distance Matters, Especially in Australia
None of this is unique to one country, but long distances tend to make it worse. More kilometres usually means more handovers, and more handovers mean more gaps. Busy peak periods don’t help either.
Australia is a good example. Freight heading from a port to a capital city and then out to a regional town can pass through several carriers along the way, and something bound for a remote site might change vehicles more than once. For Australian businesses moving goods over those distances, regular location updates on each item, rather than a record of where it was last scanned, can be useful.
Small Trackers for Individual Items
One of the more practical answers is also one of the smallest. A sticker GPS tracking device is ultra-thin and light, and it attaches to a parcel, carton or valuable much like a shipping label. It’s plain and unbranded, so it doesn’t draw attention while the item is being handled.
Getting one going is quick. You cut a tab or press a button, pair it with its companion app, and it’s ready to track. It uses Bluetooth Low Energy, and there’s no charging involved because the built-in battery is designed to last for the full tracking period.
The main thing to consider is how long the tracker needs to operate. Battery life can vary depending on the device, with some designed to run for several weeks and others for many months. Durability can also differ, particularly when it comes to resistance to dust and water, so the right specifications will depend on how and where the tracker is being used.
They aren’t only for parcels, either. A slim tracker fits inside a toolbox or equipment case without taking up room, and the same goes for laptops, handbags or keys.
Start With a Trial
In my view, the sensible approach is to begin small and keep things simple. There’s no need to tag everything on day one. Try a handful of consignments first; that’s usually enough to see whether the location updates fit the way your team already works, who actually needs access to them, and whether customers want to see them too. It’s also worth matching the device to the job; a parcel crossing town in a few days and a carton stored outdoors for months have quite different needs. Because the stickers are light and quick to apply, scaling up later is mostly a question of volume.
Tracking won’t remove every risk from a supply chain. What it does is answer the one question a scan can’t: not just where the box was, but where it’s got to since.
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