Every month, hundreds of thousands of people type a tracking status into Google because the page their carrier gave them did not explain it. A large share of those searches reach pango.ai, which publishes plain-language explainers for more than 300 carrier and marketplace statuses. That gives us something most delivery data lacks: a live, large sample of the questions shoppers actually have, by carrier, by status and by country. This is the November edition.
What changed this month
- Happy Returns: 69,229 searches, up 3,310% from 2,030 (carrier or marketplace).
- SHEIN: 112,187 searches, up 88% from 59,711 (carrier or marketplace).
- Poste Italiane (English-language tracking): 65,720 searches, down 39% from 107,058 (carrier or marketplace).
Short answer: In the 28 days to 2 November 2026, pango.ai's explainers received 1,096,076 search impressions from real, non-brand queries, up 78% from 616,425 in the previous 28 days. SHEIN generates more tracking-status searches than any other name in the data, 112,187 in the window, up 88% from the month before. "Out for delivery" is the single most searched status family, with 65,475 searches, up 18% from the month before.
How the index is built
The numbers are Google Search Console impressions for pango.ai's pages, compared with the 28 days before. Three filters are applied before anything is counted: queries that name Pango are removed; machine-generated queries (AI agents' fan-out prompts, scraper strings) are removed with the same rule we use for our own reporting; and queries are assigned to one carrier or marketplace by name. An impression means a shopper searched the phrase and a pango.ai page was shown; it is a measure of demand for an explanation, not of parcel volume. Carriers we have fewer pages about are under-counted, which is why the index tracks change month over month rather than absolute size.
The window is 6 October 2026 to 2 November 2026 (28 complete days), compared with 8 September 2026 to 5 October 2026. From this edition the index counts every query Search Console returns for the window. The October edition counted only the first 25,000 query rows and used a window one day longer, so the previous-month column here is recomputed with the current method and sits above the figures printed in the October edition. The two columns in every table are like for like.
Where the anxiety is: carriers and marketplaces
| Carrier or marketplace | Searches reaching pango.ai, 28 days | Previous 28 days | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| SHEIN | 112,187 | 59,711 | +88% |
| Happy Returns | 69,229 | 2,030 | +3310% |
| Poste Italiane (English-language tracking) | 65,720 | 107,058 | -39% |
| 4PX | 43,095 | 8,494 | +407% |
| ASOS | 39,683 | 13,652 | +191% |
| Temu | 32,991 | 16,024 | +106% |
| AliExpress | 29,419 | 3,949 | +645% |
| InPost | 23,323 | 8,559 | +172% |
| Depop | 19,512 | 11,273 | +73% |
| Royal Mail | 14,168 | 4,191 | +238% |
| Asendia | 12,097 | 7,750 | +56% |
| Vinted | 11,758 | 7,184 | +64% |
| Cainiao | 9,801 | 8,952 | +9% |
| FedEx | 8,549 | 8,414 | +2% |
| DHL | 6,161 | 2,863 | +115% |
| USPS | 4,548 | 4,224 | +8% |
| Chronopost | 4,043 | 1,915 | +111% |
| Instabee | 3,836 | 1,887 | +103% |
| Amazon Logistics | 3,478 | 3,333 | +4% |
| Yodel | 3,427 | 2,028 | +69% |
| Evri | 3,049 | 3,000 | +2% |
| PostNL | 2,647 | 1,931 | +37% |
| La Poste and Colissimo | 2,276 | 3,106 | -27% |
| India Post | 2,217 | 415 | +434% |
| Pitney Bowes | 1,833 | 556 | +230% |
| BRT | 1,584 | 1,414 | +12% |
| Delhivery | 1,378 | new pages | |
| UPS | 1,276 | 1,430 | -11% |
| Canada Post | 1,170 | 944 | +24% |
| China Post | 1,002 | 369 | +172% |
One name appears for the first time because its pages are new: Delhivery.
The marketplaces that ship from China (SHEIN, Temu, AliExpress through Cainiao and 4PX) and the carriers that deliver their parcels are among the largest risers: the parcel is cheap, the journey is long and the tracking is written by three different companies, so the shopper searches.
Every carrier or marketplace with at least 1,000 searches in the window has a row, so the table grows as the explainers cover more names. Nordic and Benelux carriers (PostNord, Bring, Instabee, PostNL, bpost) join it in the month they clear that line.
Two forces move every row in this table, and an operator should separate them before acting on either. The first is demand: more people typing a carrier's name and a status into Google. The second is coverage: pango.ai publishing new explainers about that carrier, which raises the carrier's count without a single extra parcel being shipped. As a rule of thumb, a rise of several hundred percent is coverage, and a rise on a carrier whose pages did not change inside the window is demand.
Coverage explains the largest moves. Happy Returns, 69,229 from 2,030, follows the Happy Returns locations page published on 7 October, which answers the "where do I drop this off" searches that the earlier tracking explainer did not. 4PX, 43,095 from 8,494, follows the 4PX Canada tracking page on 21 October and the "what is 4PX shipping" explainer on 12 October. AliExpress, 29,419 from 3,949, and Temu, 32,991 from 16,024, follow the first marketplace delivery-time pages: the AliExpress "awaiting delivery" explainer on 24 October, the "how long does Temu take after customs" page on 26 October, the Canada delivery-time pages for both marketplaces on 27 October and the AliExpress Australia page on 2 November. India Post, 2,217 from 415, and Delhivery, in the table for the first time at 1,378, follow the Indian-language status pages published through October (Hindi on 6 October, then Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Malayalam and Punjabi by 21 October) and the Delhivery status glossary on 21 October. Delhivery had 20 searches in the previous window, which is why its row shows "new pages" instead of a percentage. None of these rises says anything about how many parcels the carrier moved.
SHEIN is the largest absolute rise, 112,187 from 59,711, and it is both forces at once. The SHEIN status glossary was live through both windows, so the base is demand, but sixteen SHEIN pages went live inside the window as well: the airport statuses on 6 October, the "customs release" explainer on 9 October, Spanish and Portuguese status pages from 15 October and the SHEIN delivery-time pages from 29 October. We cannot split the 88% between the two in this edition. The cleaner demand signals are the names with no new page in the window: Depop, 19,512 from 11,273, Yodel, 3,427 from 2,028, Asendia, 12,097 from 7,750, Chronopost, 4,043 from 1,915, Instabee, 3,836 from 1,887, and PostNL, 2,647 from 1,931. Those are existing pages receiving more searches: the autumn parcel season arriving in the UK, France and the Nordics. The large US carriers barely moved on unchanged pages: FedEx 8,549 from 8,414, USPS 4,548 from 4,224, Amazon Logistics 3,478 from 3,333, and UPS down to 1,276 from 1,430.
Poste Italiane is the one large fall, 65,720 from 107,058. The English-language Poste Italiane tracking page has been live and unchanged since 15 August, and no Poste Italiane page was added in the window. What changed is visibility: in late October, Google's results for those queries were reshuffled and the page was shown less often. Google has not said why, and this index will not guess. The number should not be read as fewer Italian parcels. It is a change in how often one page appears, and it is the clearest example of why the index tracks change by name rather than treating any row as a market measure. La Poste and Colissimo, 2,276 from 3,106, fell on unchanged pages by an amount we treat as noise until a second month confirms it.
Which statuses people cannot decode
| Status family | Searches, 28 days | Previous 28 days | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Out for delivery (will it come today, until what time) | 65,475 | 55,273 | +18% |
| Customs clearance (awaiting, completed, how long) | 39,599 | 18,996 | +108% |
| In transit (and why it is stuck) | 16,109 | 14,916 | +8% |
| Item bagged and bag received | 12,159 | 7,887 | +54% |
| Delivery attempted | 10,471 | 11,015 | -5% |
| Departed from facility | 5,543 | 5,562 | +0% |
| Arrived at sort facility | 4,611 | 4,867 | -5% |
| Returned to sender | 4,087 | 4,276 | -4% |
| Label created | 3,756 | 2,931 | +28% |
| Shipment information received / parcel data | 3,127 | 2,653 | +18% |
| Handed over to the local carrier | 2,735 | 1,472 | +86% |
| Delivered but not received | 2,442 | 1,828 | +34% |
| Processed through facility | 2,249 | 2,315 | -3% |
| Awaiting collection | 1,158 | 1,225 | -5% |
"Out for delivery" leads whenever it appears at the top because it is the one status that creates a decision: do I stay in today? "Delivered but not received" rose this month, and it is the status that turns into a support ticket every single time.
The status table is less exposed to coverage than the carrier table, because every family in it had pages in both windows, but it is not immune. Customs clearance, 39,599 from 18,996, is the clearest mix of the two forces. Seven customs explainers went live in the window: the SHEIN "customs release" page on 9 October, "export customs clearance completed" on 12 October, "customs declaration completed" on 16 October, "customs clearance" on 21 October, and the German and Italian versions of "customs clearance completed" on 25 and 29 October. On top of that sits the season: the marketplaces that ship from China rose across the carrier table, and every one of those parcels passes through a customs stage the shopper cannot see into.
"Out for delivery", 65,475 from 55,273, is mostly demand. The regional-language versions (Hindi and Tamil on 23 October, Malayalam on 24 October, Kannada, Marathi and Telugu on 30 October) add coverage only at the margin for a family this large. "Item bagged and bag received", 12,159 from 7,887, is an Indian status family and its rise is coverage: the "bag received for forwarding" explainer on 14 October and the Hindi versions of "item bagged" and "bag received for forwarding" on 26 October. "Handed over to the local carrier", 2,735 from 1,472, and "label created", 3,756 from 2,931, rose with no new page in either family, so those are demand. So is "delivered but not received", 2,442 from 1,828: no page in that family changed, more people searched it, and it is the one status in the table that becomes a support ticket and, often, a refund.
The small falls are instructive. "Delivery attempted", 10,471 from 11,015, fell even though Bengali and Tamil versions went live on 26 October, and "awaiting collection", 1,158 from 1,225, fell despite a new "awaiting collection by the consignee" page on 10 October. New pages do not guarantee a rise. When a family moves by a few percent either way, read it as flat.
For an operator, the order of the table is the order of the messages to write. The two families at the top are both questions about time: will it come today, and how long will the hold last. A tracking page that states the expected date for the current stage, and a customs message that says whether a payment is due and from whom, answer both.
What people ask, in their own words
Across the 28 days, 182,274 impressions came from "what does X mean" questions, 58,937 from "how long" questions and 7,430 from "where is" or "why" questions. Shoppers are not asking where the parcel is; the tracking page already tells them that. They are asking what the words mean and how long the stage lasts. That is the gap every carrier tracking page leaves open, and it is the one a brand's own tracking page can close.
The shape of the questions moved as well as the volume. "How long" questions more than doubled, 58,937 from 24,751, a rise of 138%, while "what does X mean" questions grew 48%, 182,274 from 122,854, and "where is" or "why" questions grew 36%, 7,430 from 5,462. The "how long" jump is coverage: the marketplace delivery-time pages described above are the first pages on pango.ai written to answer that question directly, and most of them went live in the last week of the window. The 48% growth in "what does X mean" is closer to the underlying demand, since those explainers were live in both windows, and it remains the dominant question by a wide margin. A tracking page that shows the carrier's raw status with no explanation sends that shopper to Google, and from Google to a page that is not the brand's.
Where the searches come from
By country, the impressions came from: United States 28%, United Kingdom 15%, India 9%, Canada 5%, Australia 4%, South Africa 3%, Philippines 2%, Italy 2%, Germany 2%, Brazil 2%. The long tail is wide, because the English status strings travel with the parcel into every market.
The United States share, 28%, is lower than the 36% printed in the October edition, and India's, 9%, is higher than October's 6%. Part of that is method: the October shares were computed on the first 25,000 query rows and are not like for like with this edition, so read the comparison as direction rather than size. The direction is real for India: the Indian-language pages published through October brought a new audience, and that audience searches English status strings written by Indian carriers, which is why the "item bagged" family rose with it. For a brand selling into several of these countries, the list is also a translation priority.
What a brand should do with this
The index is a map of the questions your customers will ask your support team, in the order they will ask them. Four conclusions:
- Translate the status, not just the page. A tracking page that says "arrived at the sorting centre in your country" in the customer's language removes the search and the ticket.
- Answer "how long" before it is asked. The tracking page and the dispatch message should carry the expected date for the stage the parcel is in, and update it when the stage slips.
- Treat customs as a stage with its own message. A customs hold with no explanation is the most expensive silence in the journey; the message should say whether a payment is expected and from whom.
- Watch "delivered but not received". It is the status most likely to end in a refund, and it is the one where a proof-of-delivery photo and the drop location in the delivery message change the outcome.
Pango builds those four into the tracking page and the notifications from every connected carrier's events, in the customer's language. The data in this index is the reason the product works the way it does.
How to cite this index
The index is published monthly and is free to cite. Use the line below, and link the page rather than copying the tables, because the tables are corrected in place if an error is found:
Pango, The Parcel Anxiety Index, November 2026, pango.ai/resources/parcel-anxiety-index-november-2026, Google Search Console impressions for pango.ai, 6 October 2026 to 2 November 2026, compared with 8 September 2026 to 5 October 2026.
Quote any single figure with its window and with the note that it measures demand for an explanation reaching pango.ai, not parcel volume. If you need the underlying rows for a carrier, ask; the raw tables are ours and we share them with brands.
Next edition
The December 2026 edition will be published on Tuesday 1 December 2026, the first working day of the month. Its window will end on 30 November 2026 and cover the 28 days before it, 3 November to 30 November, compared with this edition's window, with the same method: every query row Search Console returns, brand and machine queries removed, carriers and status families assigned by name. It will carry the first full month of the marketplace delivery-time pages, which should make the AliExpress, Temu and SHEIN rows and the "how long" question line comparable on coverage for the first time.
