A shipment lost in transit is a total loss — unless you claim it.
Stock, sale and freight gone at once, and nothing to inspect. The difficulty is that a loss is an absence — it never announces itself. Here is who to claim from, what proves a loss, and how to catch these before the window closes.
- A lost shipment loses you stock, sale and freight together — with no product to recover.
- Claim from the marketplace for managed logistics; from the courier if you booked shipping directly.
- Proof is the tracking history: movement, then silence past the normal transit time.
- The window runs from the loss event, not from when you noticed — and losses are easy to miss.
- Robnu compares every dispatch against delivery and flags the silent ones. Free while we figure out pricing.
Of all the ways a marketplace order can cost you money, a lost shipment is the cleanest total loss — and the easiest to overlook, precisely because nothing arrives to remind you it happened.
A parcel that vanishes in the network is a total loss — stock, sale and freight gone at once, with nothing to inspect. This guide covers who you claim from, what evidence proves a shipment was lost, the windows, and how to catch these before they expire — because a loss is an absence, and it never announces itself.
Who to claim from
The first decision is which party to claim against, and getting it wrong wastes a claim window. The rule is simple: claim from whoever booked the logistics. For marketplace-managed shipping — the usual case on AJIO, Meesho and Amazon — that is the marketplace, which handles the courier on your behalf. Where you arranged shipping directly, the claim goes to the courier under your contract. Either way, the reference is the specific shipment and its tracking history. Both a forward shipment lost before delivery and a return lost on the way back are lost-in-transit cases — the return leg is the more commonly overlooked.
Proving an absence
You cannot photograph a parcel that is not there; the proof is in the trail it left before it vanished. The core evidence is the tracking history — movement followed by silence, well past the normal transit time for that lane, which is what distinguishes a loss from a delay. Pair it with your dispatch record showing what was shipped and its value, and the absence of a delivery or return-received scan. Save the tracking history before the pages age out. There is no universal number for how long to wait, but a shipment far past its expected window with no scans should be treated as a potential loss, not left to resolve itself.
Noticing the parcels that never arrive
Every other kind of claim starts with something arriving — a damaged return, a wrong item. A lost shipment starts with nothing, which is why it is uniquely easy to miss. The only defence is systematically comparing what was dispatched against what actually completed its journey, and filing inside a window that runs from the loss event rather than from when you noticed. Our reconciliation tracks every shipment from dispatch through to delivery or return, flags the ones that went silent past their transit time, and routes the claim to the right party with the tracking evidence attached. See claim deadlines.
The bigger picture for your catalogue
Whatever the specific status, charge or process, the underlying reality of selling on Indian marketplaces is the same. The platforms are built to move enormous volume, their interfaces speak in operational shorthand rather than plain language, and the money at stake hides in charges that arrive as silent settlement deductions requiring no approval from you. The sellers who stay profitable are not the ones who avoid every problem — that is impossible at scale — but the ones who understand what each event means, know which charges are genuinely owed, and reconcile every settlement so the wrong ones are caught and reclaimed while the claim window is still open.
That discipline is simple to describe and hard to sustain by hand, because it is precise, repetitive work layered on top of actually running the business. It is exactly the kind of task that a two-person team does inconsistently under volume and that software does reliably every cycle. Robnu exists to close that gap: it runs the daily operations these guides describe, reconciles the charges they represent against what you actually shipped and sold, and files the claims you are entitled to — so the vocabulary becomes something handled rather than something you have to master and police yourself. You sell; Robnu runs the rest, and makes sure every rupee is paid correctly.
Sources & further reading
Charges, policies and processes vary by marketplace and category and change over time. The details here are drawn from official documentation and reputable industry sources; always confirm current specifics against your own seller panel and settlement reports:
Follow who booked the shipment
The first decision is which party to claim against, and getting it wrong wastes a claim window. The rule is simple: claim from whoever booked the logistics. For marketplace- managed shipping — the usual case on AJIO, Meesho and Amazon — that is the marketplace, which handles the courier on your behalf.
Where you arranged shipping directly, the claim goes to the courier under your contract with them. Either way, the reference is the specific shipment and its tracking history — see how the same evidence resolves a return stuck in transit.
Proving an absence
You cannot photograph a parcel that is not there. The proof is in the trail it left before it vanished.
Tracking history
Movement followed by silence, well past the normal transit time for that lane. This is what distinguishes a loss from a delay. Save it before tracking pages age out.
Dispatch record
What was shipped and its value, so the claim reflects the actual loss. Your own dispatch log is the source — the marketplace will not have your cost basis.
No delivery scan
The absence of a delivery or return-received scan, combined with no further movement, is what establishes the shipment never completed its journey.
Noticing the parcels that never arrive
Every other kind of claim starts with something arriving — a damaged return, a wrong item. A lost shipment starts with nothing, which is why it is uniquely easy to miss. The only defence is systematically comparing what was dispatched against what actually completed its journey.
Robnu is an agentic OMS. It tracks every shipment from dispatch through to delivery or return, flags the ones that went silent past their transit time, and routes the lost-in-transit claim to the right party with the tracking evidence attached — a rare approval click while fully-autonomous filing rolls out. The losses that used to pass unnoticed get claimed.
You sell. Robnu runs the rest — and makes sure every rupee is paid correctly.
Lost shipments, answered
The parcel stops moving in the courier network and never reaches its destination — whether that is the customer on a forward leg or you on a return. It is one of the worst outcomes for a seller because you can lose the stock, the sale and the freight all at once, with no product to recover. Unlike a return, there is nothing to inspect; there is only a claim to file.
It depends on who booked the shipment. For marketplace-managed logistics, you generally claim through the marketplace, which handles the courier relationship on your behalf — you reference the order and the loss, and the marketplace processes it. Where you booked shipping directly, the claim goes to the courier. Getting this right first time avoids wasting a claim window on the wrong party.
With the tracking history. A shipment that shows movement and then goes silent well past the normal transit time for that lane is the core evidence. Pair it with your dispatch record showing what was shipped and its value, and any last-known scan. The absence of a delivery scan combined with no further movement is what establishes a loss rather than a delay.
Beyond the normal transit time for that lane, and especially once tracking has gone silent. There is no universal number — a metro lane and a remote one differ — but a shipment far past its expected window with no scans should be treated as a potential loss and investigated, not left to resolve itself. Waiting indefinitely usually just runs down the claim window.
Defined and limited, running from the loss event or last tracking activity rather than from when you noticed. This is the crux of the problem: a lost shipment does not announce itself, so it is easy to discover the loss after the window has closed. Noticing the absence early is what makes the claim recoverable.
Because a loss is an absence, not an event. A damaged return arrives and demands attention; a lost shipment simply never arrives, and nothing prompts you to look. Unless something is actively comparing what was dispatched against what was delivered or returned, a lost parcel can pass unnoticed until it is too late to claim.
Often you are charged freight regardless, which compounds the loss — you have paid to ship a parcel that neither delivered nor returned. That freight charge is part of what a lost-in-transit claim seeks to recover, alongside the value of the goods, depending on the terms that apply.
You cannot stop parcels being lost, but you can stop the losses going unclaimed. The fix is reconciliation: systematically compare every dispatch against its eventual delivery or return, flag the shipments that went silent, and file inside the window. Prevention is impossible; recovery is entirely a matter of noticing in time.
Related seller guides
More on the operations, money and claims that decide whether a marketplace catalogue actually makes money.
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