9 Reasons for Shipping Delays and How to Resolve Them (2026)

Shipping delays occur when a carrier or fulfillment network delivers an order later than the promised delivery date. Delays can be caused by anything from weather events and capacity constraints to larger geopolitical issues.

According to Sendcloud’s 2025 Ecommerce Delivery Compass, nearly 60% of online consumers have encountered at least one problem with their delivery experience. And in Sifted’s 2025 consumer survey, nearly half of consumers said they stop buying from a brand after a poor delivery or packaging experience. For retailers, that means shipping delays and delivery issues can hurt conversion, retention, and revenue.

So how can you navigate shipping delays? This post highlights the main causes and offers tips on mitigating and handling delivery delays. 

What causes shipping delays?

While shipping delays are inconvenient, sometimes they’re unavoidable. Here are nine common causes:

1. Labor shortages
2. Holidays
3. Extreme weather conditions
4. Supply chain disruptions
5. Lost or damaged packages
6. Inaccurate shipping information
7. Customs and regulatory holds
8. Carrier capacity constraints and network congestion
9. Infrastructure and equipment failures

Labor shortages

Global worker shortages cause shipping delays throughout the supply chain. Understaffed warehouses and ports can’t load or unload cargo at a normal pace, which creates bottlenecks at transit points. 

Shortages of commercial drivers also mean goods often sit idle after reaching land. These staffing gaps lead to transportation hurdles and lower customer service levels. 

Holidays

Holiday order spikes increase pressure on courier networks. During these periods, shipment volumes can exceed carrier capacity, leading to delivery delays.

International production schedules also affect fulfillment. Holiday events in supplier regions pause manufacturing and logistics. Retailers track these regional calendars to adjust inventory lead times and avoid stockouts.

Setting order deadlines also manages shopper expectations. Retailers post shipping cut-off dates on their website so customers know when to place orders for on-time delivery.

Extreme weather conditions

Extreme weather delays shipping by closing roads, slowing port activity, and disrupting warehouse operations. 

A 2025 Global FM survey found that 62% of risk decision-makers experienced at least one severe disruption due to weather in the previous three years. These events make delivery routes unpredictable for domestic and international shipping.

Several environmental factors stop movement along critical infrastructure:

• Floods. Heavy rain and rising water levels close roads and damage inventory in warehouses.
• Droughts. Dry conditions lower water levels in canals and rivers, which limits how much cargo ships can carry.
• Winter storms. Ice and freezing conditions halt trucking and slow down port operations.

Supply chain disruptions

Global trade is less predictable than it was five years ago. Shipping delays continue as conflicts and trade restrictions change how goods move across international networks.

Geopolitical risk is a top concern for 82% of supply chain leaders, according to a 2025 DP World study. While most leaders recognize the threat, only 25% say they’re prepared for these external shocks. This exposure leads to sudden shifts in sourcing, manufacturing, and delivery timelines.

International conflicts along with increased shipping costs and trade-route disruptions at major maritime chokepoints, have also contributed to global shipping delays. 

For example, in 2025, security threats in the Red Sea forced vessels to bypass the Suez Canal. And persistent water level constraints in the Panama Canal have limited daily transits. These chokepoint bottlenecks create shipping delays and inflate logistics costs.

Lost or damaged packages 

Lost or damaged packages can happen at various points through the entire supply chain—often during the final shipping process. According to a 2025 report from the US Postmaster General, at least 58 million packages were stolen in 2024, which erodes customer trust and adds pressure on retailers and delivery providers..

Inaccurate shipping information

When customers give a misspelled or incorrect address at checkout, or when the retailer doesn’t document the customer’s order properly, the courier company may not have enough information to correctly deliver the package. This can cause shipping delays, increased last mile delivery costs, or packages that never arrive.

Customs and regulatory holds

The US removed the de minimis threshold for all countries on August 29, 2025. This change means every shipment enters formal or informal customs and incurs duties. 

DHL reports the requirement caused a large increase in formal clearances. The global carrier temporarily restricted some Germany-to-US postal shipments and paused certain US-bound business-to-consumer (B2C) shipments over $800.

Regulatory holds slow deliveries when cargo needs extra documentation or duty assessment. Backlogs develop as customs teams and brokers manage complex entry processes. 

For example, a package that once moved through expedited clearance now requires a full customs entry, which increases the total processing time before delivery.

Carrier capacity constraints and network congestion

In August 2025, C.H. Robinson reported that Suez Canal diversions consumed 15% to 20% of global vessel capacity. Congestion at north European ports also reduces a ship’s annual round trips from 12 to eight or nine. 

The delays cut shipping capacity by 25% to 30%. When vessels wait at ports, carriers have fewer usable slots and fewer sailings, creating bottlenecks and longer lead times. 

For example, a container headed to Europe waits longer because congestion in Rotterdam, Hamburg, or Antwerp keeps vessels in port. Exporters also face delays when carriers cancel sailings to reallocate equipment to rerouted services or transshipment hubs like Singapore or Port Klang.

Infrastructure and equipment failures

Machinery damage or failure accounted for 1,860 shipping incidents in 2024, according to Allianz Commercial’s 2025 Safety and Shipping Review. This figure is over half of all global shipping incidents. 

The report also shows 250 contact incidents involving harbor walls and other infrastructure. These failures interrupt the physical movement of cargo.

Loading and unloading slow down when a crane fails or a terminal system goes down. Even one failure causes subsequent delays because vessels, containers, and trucks follow tight schedules. For instance, a vessel with engine problems might miss its port window and arrive late. This breakdown creates backlogs affecting later sailings across the network.

How do shipping delays impact retailers?

On top of influencing customer purchasing decisions, shipping delays impact multiple aspects of your business: 

Lost revenue

Shipping delays can negatively impact revenue. A 2025 risk management survey from Sphera reported that 73% of organizations suffered supplier disruptions in the past 12 months. Within that, 23% reported significant revenue or cost losses, while another 50% reported moderate losses.

Susana Saeliu, co-founder and CEO of pillow brand Pluto, explains how shipping delays in the US and across Asia lowered her brand’s conversion rate. 

“The longest we’ve been delayed is by eight weeks; in other words, customers would receive their custom pillow in two months. This was incredibly difficult, as our turnaround time was usually seven business days. As a result, we definitely saw a decrease in conversion rate.”

Damage to brand trust and reputation

Issues with shipping and delivery give a negative experience to customers that erodes brand trust. Sifted’s 2025 consumer survey reported that 48% of consumers said a bad delivery or packaging experience affects their willingness to buy again from a brand. 

Inventory issues

Shipping delays can make it hard for retailers to effectively forecast demand and plan their inventory. As a result, retailers may overstock and end up paying high costs for inventory storage. Alternatively, they may under-forecast customer demand, quickly sell out, and be unable to restock quickly enough to meet actual customer demand. 

Tip: Shopify POS comes with tools to assist with inventory management across multiple store locations, your online store, and warehouse. Forecast demand, set low-stock alerts, create purchase orders, know which items are selling or sitting on shelves, count inventory, and more.

How to handle shipping delays

Shipping delays are an inevitable problem in ecommerce, so it’s important to plan ahead for how you’ll handle them. Here are six tips:

1. Create a contingency plan for timely delivery
2. Offer free shipping
3. Provide in-store pickup
4. Offer shipment tracking
5. Communicate shipping delays with customers
6. Offer gift cards and discounts to dissatisfied customers

Create a contingency plan for timely delivery

While you don’t always have control over shipping delays, you can take some steps to mitigate your vulnerability to potential disruptions. 

One option is to diversify—use multiple carriers, warehouse locations, and suppliers. You can do this with Shopify Shipping, which allows you to ship from up to 1,000 fulfillment locations worldwide and create custom shipping rates for specific regions or products. 

Offer free shipping

According to Sendcloud’s 2025 ecommerce survey, 82% of customers prefer free shipping over fast delivery. You do have to balance the benefits against the impact on your profit margins, as your business absorbs fulfillment costs.

Provide in-store pickup

Offer alternative fulfillment options like curbside pickup to help customers receive their orders on time and mitigate shipping delays.

“We offer in-store and curbside pickup, as well as a signed-for-delivery option,” say Kelly and Zoey Allen of KelZo Jewellery. “We also absorbed the rise in postage costs ourselves so as not to incur any extra costs to our customers, showing them how committed we are.”

Tip: Set up in-store pickup in Shopify to start offering in-store pickup as a delivery option at checkout. Pay less on last-mile delivery, speed up fulfillment times on local orders, and drive more foot traffic to your stores.

Offer shipment tracking

Shipment tracking systems can reassure customers that their order is on its way, even if it’s delayed.

“Shipment tracking allows customers to know if a delay is caused by shipping carriers or your business,” says Jack Lee, the owner of Evolve Mala. “The latter erodes brand trust much more than the former. Another benefit of offering shipment tracking is that it reduces the number of support tickets from customers wanting to know where their order is.”

Some ecommerce providers (including Shopify and the Shop app) let customers track real-time delivery of packages. They include tracking details in transactional emails, including order confirmations, for complete visibility on where their parcel is.

Communicate shipping delays with customers

A 2025 shopping report by Stord found that 56% of consumers prefer order updates by SMS, but only 12% of brands send them that way. It also found that 58% of shoppers want to see an exact delivery date before committing to a purchase, yet only 1% of brands provide clear estimated delivery dates.

If a shipping delay throws your estimation off course, open lines of communication prevent unexpected surprises on your customer’s end. 

Offer gift cards and discounts to dissatisfied customers 

Gift cards and discounts are another way to show customers you care and value their business, even when things don’t go according to plan. Incentives like gift cards or free replacements (with expedited shipping) lower customer frustration surrounding delayed shipments. 

With Shopify POS, you can sell physical and digital gift cards that can be redeemed both in store and online. Sell physical gift cards in store, email digital gift cards to customers, and let them redeem their gift card wherever they prefer to shop.

How to prevent shipping delays

Getting ahead of shipping delays improves customer satisfaction and reduces “Where is my order?”" (WISMO) support tickets. Here are three ways to prevent them and how Shopify can help. 

1. Set realistic delivery promises
2. Reduce address and documentation errors at checkout
3. Diversify carriers and fulfillment nodes

Set realistic delivery promises

Stord’s 2025 mystery shopping study found that only 34% of orders arrived when promised. About 14% of brands missed their delivery dates, some by as much as one week. Setting realistic delivery promises prevents these delays by aligning checkout estimates with fulfillment capacity.

Retailers with a 2 p.m. warehouse cutoff should stop showing “ships today” after that time to avoid overpromising. During weather disruptions, widen delivery windows and display notices at checkout. 

In the Shopify admin, you can set processing times and display delivery dates at checkout, including either automated delivery dates based on shipping performance or manual date ranges based on your own processing and transit assumptions.

Reduce address and documentation errors at checkout

In PostGrid’s 2025 State of Address Verification report, 75% of businesses said delayed or failed deliveries are a major cost. Those that implemented address verification reported 77% fewer delays and returns. Catching these issues at checkout prevents bad data from stalling fulfillment.

Errors like incomplete apartment numbers or formatting mistakes trigger manual reviews and carrier exceptions. Shopify supports address autocompletion and lets customers validate their address during checkout. Shop Pay also lets returning shoppers use saved shipping information, so they don’t have to enter details manually. 

Diversify carriers and fulfillment nodes

Walmart reported in February 2025 that its expanded store-fulfilled delivery areas now reach 93% of US households with same-day service. Diversifying fulfillment nodes gives retailers fallback capacity. If a warehouse reaches capacity or misses a carrier handoff, another location fulfills the order.

The approach avoids depending on a single inventory pool. If a main warehouse is out of a product, a nearby store ships it instead. Shopify, for example, supports multilocation inventory and order routing rules to assign orders based on available stock. Retailers using Shopify POS pick, pack, and buy labels in-store, so they don’t miss shipping deadlines during high-volume periods.

After adopting Ship from Store on Shopify POS, footwear retailer Allbirds enabled 31 retail stores to fulfill omnichannel demand, reduced shipping and labor costs, and improved conversion by making store inventory available to online shoppers. 

Mitigate shipping delays for your business

Shipping delays are an unavoidable part of ecommerce operations, but it’s possible to lessen their impact on your customers and your revenue. Diversifying carriers, setting realistic delivery timeframes, and keeping customers informed on shipment status reduces delay costs—both financial and reputational—when they occur. 

Businesses that prefer to outsource fulfillment entirely can use the Shopify Fulfillment Network to connect with Flexport. After you receive an order, Flexport picks and packs your products and ships them to your customer, with most US shipments delivered to your customer within three days.