Your TCGHaulTracker dashboard shows two shipment metrics that are designed to be read together: Scan Rate and Delivery Rate. They look simple — two percentages — but they answer different questions, and understanding what each actually measures changes how you interpret your data.
This article explains exactly how both numbers are calculated, what they mean in practice, and how to use them together to get an honest picture of your shipping operation.
The Core Problem: USPS Doesn't Confirm Letter Mail Delivery
Package tracking works because USPS scans packages at the door. Letter mail doesn't work that way. The last scan a plain white envelope typically receives is when it's sorted onto a carrier route at your buyer's local post office — after that, the carrier loads it and delivers it with no further scan event.
This means "delivered" for letter mail is always an inference, not a fact that USPS directly reports. Any dashboard that shows you a letter mail delivery rate is making some kind of judgment call about what counts as delivered. TCGHaulTracker is explicit about how that judgment is made.
Scan Rate: What USPS Actually Reported On
Scan Rate is the percentage of your barcoded orders that received at least one USPS scan event. It measures mailstream visibility — how much of your operation USPS is reporting on.
A 75% scan rate doesn't mean 25% of your mail failed to deliver. It means 25% of your orders moved through the postal network without being read by IV-MTR reporting equipment. This is a function of USPS infrastructure coverage — some origin facilities, some routes, and some destination areas have lower scan rates than others. It's not something you control.
Why scan rate matters
Scan rate tells you how much data you have. A 90% scan rate means you have visibility into nearly all of your shipments and can make confident operational decisions. A 40% scan rate means more than half your operation is invisible to you — useful to know when a buyer asks about their order.
It's also a leading indicator. If your scan rate drops significantly on a specific batch or date, that's a signal worth investigating — it could indicate a mailing method issue, a facility change, or a barcode rendering problem.
Delivery Rate: What Happened to What USPS Saw
Delivery Rate is the percentage of scanned orders that delivered. It only counts orders USPS actually reported on — the denominator is your scanned orders, not all orders.
Specifically, an order counts as delivered in the rate if:
- USPS confirmed it — an Out for Delivery or PO Box delivery scan was received, or
- USPS scanned it and then went quiet for 14+ days — a piece that USPS touched and then stopped reporting on almost certainly delivered. The carrier just didn't generate a final sort scan.
Orders that never received any scan are excluded from the delivery rate entirely. They're not counted as delivered or undelivered — they're captured by the Scan Rate instead.
Reading Them Together
The two metrics answer two different questions:
| Metric | Question it answers | Denominator |
|---|---|---|
| Scan Rate | How much of my operation is USPS reporting on? | All barcoded orders |
| Delivery Rate | Of what USPS reported on, how much delivered? | Scanned orders only |
Four combinations are worth knowing:
The Delivery by State Panel
The collapsible Delivery by State panel on your dashboard breaks both metrics down by destination state. Each row shows:
- Orders — total barcoded orders to that state (minimum 2 to appear)
- Avg Days — average transit time from processing to confirmed delivery, for confirmed deliveries only
- Scan Rate — what percentage of orders to that state received any USPS scan
- Delivery Rate — of scanned orders to that state, what percentage delivered
- Silent — orders to that state with no scan in 3+ days
States are sorted by average transit time fastest first, so the states where your mail moves quickest appear at the top. This is useful for setting buyer expectations — if you know WI orders consistently arrive in 4 days and CA orders take 7, you can communicate that proactively.
Silent Orders
Silent orders are barcoded orders with no USPS scan activity after 3 or more days. They appear in the Delivery by State table and can also surface as stale shipment alerts in the Needs Attention panel when they've been quiet for 4+ days.
Most silent orders delivered fine — USPS just didn't scan them. But a cluster of silent orders from the same job or mailing date is worth a second look. It might mean:
- The batch was mailed later than the processing date (use the "Mark as mailed" feature on any job to record the actual mail date)
- The origin facility has lower IV-MTR coverage than usual
- A barcode rendering issue affected that specific batch
Silent orders from different jobs and dates are normal background noise. Silent orders clustered in a single batch are a signal worth investigating.
What to Tell Buyers
When a buyer asks where their order is, the 💬 Message button on any order in your Jobs page copies a pre-written status update to your clipboard. It pulls the current scan status automatically — whether the order has confirmed delivered, is in transit with a recent scan, or has no scans yet — and formats it in plain language you can paste directly into TCGplayer messaging.
For orders with no scans, the message explains that USPS scan coverage for letter mail is incomplete and that the absence of a scan doesn't mean the order didn't ship. That's an honest and accurate message that sets the right buyer expectation without overpromising.