Fast delivery in e-commerce – how can order fulfilment times be reduced?

Fast delivery? Customers simply expect it

Just a few years ago, shoppers were used to waiting several days for their orders. Today, online shopping is a different story. An online shop is Available round the clock; payment takes just a moment, so naturally, expectations regarding delivery are also rising. Whether a customer is ordering a product they need for a trip, a present, toiletries or pet food, every extra day of waiting counts.

That is why Next-day delivery is an important part of an online shop’s offering. As many as 98% of parcels sent to Paczkomat® parcel lockers and 95% of courier parcels reach recipients on the next working day after dispatch. This shows that fast delivery is not a scenario reserved solely for parcels sent within a single city.

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Does the parcel have to travel several hundred kilometres? That doesn’t necessarily mean it will take several days

A shop may be based in Kraków, whilst a customer places an order from Gdańsk. A warehouse may be located near Warsaw, whilst a parcel may be sent to a small town on the other side of Poland. At cooperation with a trusted logistics provider, which has an extensive transport and sorting network, The distance between the sender and the recipient alone does not determine the delivery time.

The entire logistics network is important. Once a parcel has been collected, it is taken to a branch and a sorting centre, from where it is forwarded. Our extensive infrastructure enables us to handle large volumes efficiently and transport parcels between different parts of the country. InPost’s largest logistics hub in Wola Bykowska can sort up to 85,000 parcels per hour.

In e-commerce, it’s the result that counts: an order can travel hundreds of kilometres and still reach the customer the very next day. Efficient delivery helps to create a positive shopping experience, which the customer then associates with the online shop.

Will the parcel be ready today? It’s important to organise collections properly

Express delivery does not depend solely on what happens after a parcel has been collected. A great deal is decided whilst the parcel is still at the shop’s warehouse – during the processes of picking, packing and handing over parcels for onward transport.

For individual customers, one important factor is the cut-off time for posting, i.e. the time by which a parcel must be handed over to InPost so that it can to set off again on the same working day. For companies working with InPost as part of its business solutions, the process may differ.

When you sign a contract with InPost, you can arrange regular collection orders directly from the company’s head office or warehouse. This makes it easier to tailor the dispatch process to the way the online shop operates and to plan when ready-to-dispatch parcels are handed over to the courier.

Importantly, The collection times agreed with customers for regular orders remain unchanged. This provides greater predictability in day-to-day order processing and makes it easier to plan warehouse operations so that parcels are ready on time.

Delivery within 24 hours? Start with efficient order fulfilment

Fast delivery alone won’t help much if the order has to wait several hours for the picking process to begin. It’s therefore worth checking what happens from the moment the customer clicks ‘buy and pay’ until the finished parcel is handed over for dispatch.

How quickly does an order reach the warehouse? How long does it take to pick and pack the items? At what time are the ready parcels available for collection? With just a few parcels a day, the differences may seem minor. But with several hundred or several thousand orders, they start to make a real difference.

If you’d like to To increase your chances of next-day delivery, start by reviewing your own order fulfilment process. The sooner a parcel is ready and enters the logistics network, the sooner it can continue on its journey.

Express courier services for e-commerce – what should you look out for?

When choosing a delivery service for your shop, it’s easy to focus solely on the price. In practice, what happens to the parcel after it’s been posted is just as important. It’s worth checking not only the stated delivery time, but also jGiven that a large proportion of parcels do indeed arrive the next day, what are the cut-off times and what does the parcel delivery network look like?.

The method of delivery is also important. Some customers will want to collect their purchases from a Paczkomat®, whilst others will opt for an InPost courier and delivery to a specified address. According to the Gemius report ‘E-commerce in Poland 2026’, parcel lockers are the most popular delivery method for 72 per cent of online shoppers, and Among those using this delivery method, 82% most often choose the InPost Paczkomat®.

For businesses that require a more specific delivery time, the following options are also available: courier deliveries to your address by 10.00, 12.00 or 17.00.

Speed is therefore one factor, but not the only one. For customers, convenient collection and the ability to track their parcel are also important. Using the InPost Mobile app, they can check the current status of their parcel and receive notifications about the next stages of delivery.

Do you send parcels regularly? Make your day-to-day parcel posting easier

If you send parcels regularly, it’s worth considering not only the delivery time itself, but also whether how efficiently orders are dispatched from your business. One solution is InPost’s Business Subscriptions, through which you can send both parcels to Paczkomat® lockers and courier parcels.

As part of your subscription Delivery to your doorstep is free of charge, and you also have access to a dispatch panel where you can generate waybills and check the status of your parcels. This makes it easier to organise your day-to-day dispatch operations and tailor them to your company’s workflow.

You can take out a subscription for 12 or 24 months. Check out InPost’s business subscriptions and choose the option that best suits the number of parcels you send.