D2C Order Tracking: The Fastest Way to Cut Support Tickets and Keep Customers Buying

D2C customers do not tolerate mystery after checkout

D2C order tracking is not a nice extra. It is the post-purchase experience. Research shows that D2C shoppers check order status repeatedly, and when they do not see progress, they assume the brand is disorganized or hiding something. That assumption creates support tickets, charge disputes, and negative reviews, even when the package is moving normally.

Many D2C brands come to G10 after dealing with the same cycle: fulfillment is working hard, but customers still flood support with where-is-my-order messages because the tracking story is incomplete. D2C order tracking has to do more than provide a carrier link. It has to show real progress in a way customers understand.

As Maureen Milligan said, "Most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and basically just meeting the committed requirements. So we've seen a lot of people come disillusioned by their last 3PL, where their orders weren't getting fulfilled in time, their inventory accuracy was not there, and they were not able to satisfy customer orders." D2C order tracking helps fix that disillusionment by making order status clear, immediate, and provable.

D2C tracking starts with real time fulfillment events, not just carrier scans

Carrier tracking is useful, but it is not enough for D2C. Carrier scans often lag, especially during busy seasons, weekends, and handoffs. Customers do not care why the scan is late. They care that the status looks frozen. Real time fulfillment events fill the gap by showing progress before a carrier scan appears.

Bryan Wright described the level of event history that makes this possible when he said, "Absolutely. We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking. It shows the product landed on the dock at 8 o'clock. At 8:10, John picked it up and took it to location XYZ, and at 10 o'clock, we picked two items off of that pellet in the location 1, 2, 3, 4, order, you know, ABC, and at 11 o'clock, we packed it, we put it in this box and put this label number on it, and all the way through the process onto the truck and to the customer." D2C order tracking becomes far more credible when customers can see that kind of real progress instead of waiting for a carrier scan.

Scan-based workflows keep D2C tracking accurate

D2C order tracking depends on accuracy, and accuracy depends on scanning. If products move without scans, the system cannot confirm what happened, and tracking becomes vague or misleading. That is when customers contact support because the status does not match their expectations.

As Connor Perkins said, "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper. You can lose a lot of money in this industry by you know having people ship stuff wrong, or store it wrong, and now it's lost somewhere. So having a 3PL and WMS that is 100% scan-based is crucial." Scan-based execution is the foundation of reliable D2C tracking because it ties status to proof.

Connor also said, "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLSs is inventory accuracy; maybe their previous 3PL wasn't great at picking the orders accurately. So they were losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." In D2C, wrong items and wrong quantities create a double hit: the customer is unhappy, and the tracking story becomes confusing because the delivery did not match the expectation.

D2C tracking should follow the milestones customers actually care about

D2C customers think in milestones, not warehouse jargon. They want to know that the order was received, processed, packed, shipped, and delivered. They also want to know when something is delayed and why. Research shows that clear milestones reduce support contacts because customers feel informed.

That is why a D2C order tracking strategy should include pre-carrier milestones like processing and packed. Those milestones reassure customers that the order is moving, even when the first carrier scan is late.

Visibility portals give brands and customers a shared view

Even with customer notifications, brands need a place to verify what is happening. A visibility portal gives internal teams a single source of truth so support does not have to ask the warehouse for answers on every ticket.

As Maureen said, "We're in the last stages of developing a new portal that will give customers real-time visibility to their on-time order fulfillment, inventory accuracy, and even inventory levels so that they can monitor those things directly in our systems. They'll have visibility to what the statuses of their orders-are they getting processed as they expect?-and things like that." D2C order tracking improves when brands have this same real time view.

She added, "A lot of the 3PL customer expectations are that order fulfillment is happening extremely timely, that our inventory is accurate, that we're able to execute on their orders very quickly, and get them shipped the same day. So what these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." D2C customers feel that visibility as fewer surprises and faster answers.

Reporting turns tracking into customer experience improvement

D2C order tracking is not just about showing status. It is about learning from the data. Reporting can show where customers lose confidence and where tickets spike. If customers contact support most often after a specific status, that status is not doing its job. If carriers create scan gaps that cause confusion, the fulfillment milestones should carry more of the communication burden.

As Connor said, "Our clients get best-in-class visibility and transparency. They can see their daily orders, they can see KPIs, and they can see historical transactions. They can look at a daily level or go into the more granular version where they're looking at transactional history on an item." D2C tracking improves when you can connect those histories to customer questions.

He also said, "You have easy access to reporting and you can export to Excel, or really any format that you like you know directly from our WMS portal." Reporting access helps brands diagnose friction quickly and adjust communication without guesswork.

D2C tracking reduces support volume and protects margin

Support tickets are expensive. Refunds are expensive. Reships are expensive. D2C order tracking reduces these costs by preventing confusion before it turns into a complaint. When customers can see progress clearly, they wait. When they cannot, they escalate.

As Maureen said, "We will take in your inbounds, we will get them received and reported back to you within our SLAs, and oftentimes more quickly than what we contracted for. We will ship your orders out the day they're required. And our inventory accuracy is generally right there at that 99.7% that we agreed. So that's one of the areas where we really do excel, and where we've been able to win business." D2C order tracking helps customers see that consistency, which reduces anxiety and lowers ticket volume.

D2C order tracking rebuilds confidence after poor 3PL performance

Many D2C brands switch 3PLs because the customer experience started to crack. Orders arrived late. Tracking was unclear. Support volume rose. A reliable tracking experience restores confidence by making status consistent and explainable.

As Maureen said, "For customers who have come to us from a bad 3PL relationship, they experience relief. They're suddenly seeing their business scaling, that the data supports what we agreed to, and then the trust begins to build." Better D2C tracking contributes to that relief because customers and teams stop guessing.

D2C order tracking is now a baseline expectation

D2C customers expect clarity. They expect updates that make sense. They expect a tracking experience that feels like the brand is in control. D2C order tracking requires real time fulfillment events, scan-based execution, portals, and reporting that supports ongoing improvement.

As Connor said, "This is one of our strengths. G10 is on the cutting edge for this kind of transparency and feedback for clients." If your brand wants fewer support tickets, fewer negative reviews, and more repeat purchases, improving D2C order tracking is a practical place to start.

If you want to see what D2C tracking looks like when fulfillment events are visible in real time, ask for a walkthrough that maps your current post-purchase experience to a clearer, more customer-friendly tracking flow.