Guest Article By Rusty Redecker, Vice President, Global Logistics, Avery Dennison
Global parcel network operators are under intense pressure to speed up deliveries, cut costs and keep track of where items in transit actually are. Automation is becoming essential. As a supply chain technology partner, Avery Dennison focuses on the specific operational needs of each logistics customer, using a range of technologies to solve complex challenges across their networks. For example, large-scale deployment of RFID sensing and automated visibility solutions is now replacing vast numbers of manual scans across parcel and supply chain operations, improving both efficiency and real-time visibility.
For those who have spent years building the infrastructure behind these systems, it marks a significant shift toward more intelligent, automated and real-time operations across the industry.
The problem with point-in-time visibility
Barcode scanning has served logistics well. But it was always a point-in-time solution. A scan tells you where a package was, not where it is. Between scan events, parcels effectively disappear into the network. That gap is where delays happen, where misroutes occur and where customer frustration builds.
RFID advances the model. Packages are automatically sensed as they pass through facilities, load onto vehicles and move through the last mile, without manual intervention. The network becomes self-reporting. And when you embed RFID chips directly into parcel labels, you create smart parcels: each one carrying a unique digital identity, readable at speed and without line of sight.
The data density this generates unlocks capabilities that barcodes simply cannot support. I’m talking about predictive parcel rerouting, dynamic load balancing, early exception detection and AI-driven network optimisation.
Consumers are already ahead of us
Consumer expectations have moved faster than most carriers anticipated. Research commissioned by Avery Dennison, based on a 2025 survey of 5,000 online shoppers across the US, UK, France and Germany, makes the scale of that shift clear. Four in ten consumers (40%) now expect non-food home deliveries within a specific two-to-three-hour window. That figure rises to 44% in the UK. Meanwhile, 71% of shoppers want the ability to redirect or reschedule a parcel while it’s still in transit. And 61% say they’d pay a premium for enhanced, real-time tracking.
High failure delivery rates and WISMO calls (where is my order) can kill retailers’ margins and damage their brand reputations. Consumers want to know exactly where their parcels are and they want that information in real time.
Visibility is now a competitive differentiator
As more carriers move toward continuous, automated sensing, customer expectations are being reset across the board. RFID-enabled operations reduce mis-shipments, shrink the window between exception and resolution and cut WISMO enquiries. They also generate the kind of dense, high-frequency data that makes AI-driven logistics optimisation genuinely viable.
We’re also operating in a world of real disruption – geopolitical instability, supply chain volatility, shifting trade patterns. In that environment, knowing exactly where your inventory is, in close to real time, is a competitive necessity.
RFID has moved from a pilot project to essential infrastructure. The carriers that embrace this shift will set the standard. The ones that don’t will be playing catch-up for a long time to come.