It’s happened to all of us. You order a package from a company that’s not one of the major e-commerce brands. You do your research, check reviews of the company and the product, dig through the most obscure forums online, and conclude that everything seems fine. The price is great, and you need that product. You click “buy” and wait for the shipment. The package never arrives.
You contact the seller, but they can’t give you a clear answer. The package tracking shows no movement, and the courier offers no useful information. In short, the package seems lost. If you’re lucky, the company will attempt to send you a replacement or offer a refund, but this isn’t always within their sales terms, and sometimes you just have to accept the loss.
But why does this happen? There are many reasons, but the issue affects practically every type of business and customer, not just individuals. Large companies often rely on international shipping platforms—the familiar names on transport trucks we all recognize. These shipping companies, in turn, may rely on subcontractors from their own whitelists when they don’t have their own resources for a particular route. However, these subcontractors may also be unavailable, leading to reliance on local providers with little to no track record in databases.
In some cases, these unknown companies will show up, load the goods, and then “lose” the truck. While this may be more difficult in Italy, crossing the border often diminishes the level of reliability.
The issue of lost goods shipped by the manufacturer deserves special attention: the value of the goods is often marginal, as it’s usually covered by insurance. One might even feel relieved about that. However, there are two major concerns: the first is economic, related to the recovery of the goods; the second is legal, which arises if the goods can no longer be recovered.
In the first case, if the truck is found after a report, it will be seized until the investigation is completed, and the company whose products are on board must cover the costs of the seizure period. Furthermore, once the truck is released, the goods often need to be destroyed, which incurs additional high costs.
The second issue concerns the black market for stolen goods. If the truck is not found, the goods likely end up on the market elsewhere, possibly in another country. Many products, particularly in the food industry, are subject to strict regulations. Take, for example, the classic chocolate egg with a toy inside. While familiar to everyone in Europe, this product is banned in the U.S. because it contains a plastic object that could be ingested. If one of these eggs were to end up in the U.S., proving that it was stolen and not associated with the manufacturer would be necessary. However, individual eggs do not have serial numbers—only batch numbers and product traceability codes—so identifying the company that was supposed to buy and sell them is very difficult.
Regardless of which scenario unfolds, one thing is certain: the reputational damage can be significant, especially when amplified by the media, as often happens.
This highlights the importance of third-party reputational due diligence, providing companies with the necessary information to assess the reliability of the businesses they deal with—especially suppliers—by monitoring their financial and reputational status to prevent any damage to their own image.
But how can these data be supplemented? One thing is having an organized chart that shows, on paper, what’s right and wrong with a company. It’s another thing entirely to understand, day by day, how the supplier’s business is progressing and whether there are issues that data alone cannot reveal. This is especially true when dealing with companies that themselves rely on third parties.
To avoid such problems, companies use a monitoring service not only for subcontractors but for any business they engage with. In the case of transport, for instance, clients provide details of the involved company and, before approving the loading of goods, request a Reputation Analysis. During this analysis, the financial status is examined, and the beneficiaries of the generated revenue and the company’s actual owners are identified. Based on the collected information, a positive or negative opinion is given, expressed through a score (SCORE). Only with a positive score does the client proceed to work with the transporter.
This is a Reputational Due Diligence service that helps clients monitor not only shipments, preventing cargo loss, but all business and commercial activities, thereby minimizing reputational and financial-economic risks.
There’s no need to explain how much money is saved because the reputational impact is more critical than the economic one. A failed delivery can cause far more damage than the mere value of the lost goods.
