Porch piracy: how retailers can prevent parcel theft in 2024

Don’t let porch pirates thieve from your bottom line and your customers’ doorsteps.
Find out how to protect the parcels you send from porch piracy in this guide.

As an online retailer, you sweat blood and tears to get your orders picked, packed, and loaded onto the carrier’s van – only to receive an angry email the next day: the customer never received their order.

Once again, your customer service team is forced to enter into a long investigation with the carrier to ascertain what’s happened – while you resign yourself to replacing the ‘lost’ package – all at your cost, of course.

So, where are these parcels disappearing to? Well, your customers could be falling victim to porch piracy.

What is porch piracy?

Porch piracy is a crime whereby thieves steal packages from people’s doorsteps once they’ve been delivered.

If you’ve ever had the horror of returning home to find that your much-anticipated package has simply vanished into thin air, you may be a victim of it yourself.

Nationally, 49 million Americans have had at least one package stolen in the past 12 months, and city officials report that over 90,000 packages are reported either lost or stolen in transit each day in the US.

These numbers are even more harrowing if you ship to states like Philadelphia or New York, which have recently been ranked the worst cities in the US for package thefts, with 82% of Philadelphians regularly reporting porch piracy.

But porch piracy isn’t just a problem in the US. The porch piracy statistics in the UK tell a similar story, with almost a third of those surveyed reporting a delivery going missing from outside their home.

Why is porch piracy so prevalent?

There are plenty of reasons why customers and retailers will be feeling the impact of porch piracy more than ever. These include:

More online sales = more deliveries

The first reason is simply that purchasing behaviours are changing and more sales are happening online. In 2024, retail e-commerce sales are set to exceed $6.3 million worldwide. With more online sales come more porch deliveries, and greater windows of opportunity for porch pirates to steal. 

Lack of legal action

Sadly, thieves know that they can get away with it. Although mail theft is a federal crime, lawsuits only arise if there is proof that someone took a package from a mailbox or the area right next to it. A stolen package that’s been left on your porch, in the backyard, or so-called ‘safe space’ doesn’t fall under federal jurisdiction. 

This means that it’s nearly impossible for retailers to take legal action against porch pirates. Instead, they end up out of pocket trying to compensate customers for their loss.

Attempted deliveries go wrong

If no one is home when delivery is attempted, the carrier will have several options: post the package through the mailbox, leave it in a preferred safe place, or deliver it to a neighbour.

Yet, we all know from social media platforms, drivers have been known to place items in things like trash cans. These placements have led to items becoming damaged and more likely to be stolen.

And with more of us returning to the office after a period of working from home, thieves now find themselves with more opportunities to strike.

The cost of porch piracy for retailers

The advice is clear: the retailer is responsible for delivering a package safely to the customer. Even if it’s stolen, the retailer is expected to be the first point of contact, take charge of the process, and arrange a refund or replacement.

The best carriers have robust processes in place to ensure that lost packages are investigated, but the rise of package thefts can result in long timescales with many opportunities for miscommunication between the carrier, retailer, and customer.

All of these things combined become costly, with retailers losing thousands, if not millions, of dollars each year to porch pirates.

How do package thefts impact retailer reputation?

As the first point of contact, the retailer often feels the impact on their reputation as well as their bottom line.

When a porch pirate strikes, the retailer is forced to either replace the item as a goodwill gesture or inform the customer that they’r not going to reimburse them for the failed delivery. They lose out either way.

It just takes one disgruntled customer to taint the way your brand is perceived. In fact, 86% of customers are hesitant about purchasing from companies with negative reviews, and failed or stolen deliveries put you at an immediate disadvantage.

Porch piracy also makes it harder to establish customer loyalty in ecommerce, with 86% of consumers choosing to to leave a brand they trusted after two poor customer experiences.

But all is not lost. The good news is that there are ways for retailers, carriers, and customers to protect themselves against porch piracy. Let’s explore these now.

How can retailers prevent porch piracy?

1. Opt for plain packaging

Packaging is one of the first opportunities your brand has to make an impression on a customer. It excites customers and lets you leave your mark.

Unfortunately, it excites porch pirates too. The flashier the packaging looks, the more likely the parcel is to catch their eye, especially if it’s a high-ticket package with the brand splashed all over nit.

Using discreet packaging can be enough to deter package thieves, simply because it tricks them into thinking that the item isn’t worth stealing.

2. Offer insurance options

If the customer has ordered a high-ticket item, it’s worth offering insurance on that item. That way, the retailer isn’t left holding the can when parcel theft occurs.

There are plenty of plugins that offer this option, and it can even improve cart conversion rates by giving customers greater peace of mind when purchasing – just like local pickup options do.

3. Choose the right carriers

Offering customers the most flexible delivery options will help ensure that they’re available to receive their package.

Gone are the days when customers had to wait around for a slot that could range from 9am to 9pm; we now see same-day and multiple delivery slots at the checkout, which makes things so much easier.

Real-time delivery tracking means that customers can run their lives around the arrival of the order, with notifications to tell them that the driver is just minutes away.

4. Communicate with customers

Don’t underestimate the power of regular communication with your customers. Keeping customers in the loop from the moment the order is placed, to the moment it is delivered, will give customers the best chance of catching the delivery and avoiding a porch piracy situation.

You should also be easy to reach if and when things do go wrong. Although lost or stolen parcels typically have a negative impact on a brand’s reputation, the way that brand responds to the complaint has the power to transform this customer experience.

If the package is replaced quickly and willingly, the customer is more likely to buy from you again. If you make them jump through hoops to get a refund or replacement, they’ll probably never make a repeat purchase.

5. Provide pickup delivery locations

The single best way to prevent porch piracy as a retailer is to offer more secure and flexible delivery options – like local pickup locations.

These secure, manned lock-ups are often based in areas that are open early and late, making them convenient for the customer to collect from. They also have the advantage of being constantly monitored and secure, unlike our doorsteps.

A Pickup Point is a safe designated location where shoppers can safely collect their items instead of receiving them at home. These points include various places such as local convenience stores, Post Offices, CVS Pharmacy and brick-and-mortar shops, serving as convenient hubs for parcel storage for customers.

What secure delivery solutions are there?

HubBox provides software that makes it easy you to give shoppers pickup options they love, and make sure they actually get their packages.

The HubBox retailer solution allows customers to buy online and pick up anywhere with HubBox software, eliminating the risk and complexity of doorstep delivery. 

For carriers, the HubBox carrier solution makes it easy to work with retailers to create flexible out-of-home solutions that drive down the cost of delivery as well as increasing customer satisfaction, and being more sustainable.

Have questions about how HubBox can reduce porch pirates, reduce the cost of lost packages and accelerate your growth? Check out our FAQs or book a demo today.