You negotiate a lower parcel rate. Procurement records the saving. The contract gets signed.

Then a parcel goes missing, and you discover what you bought.

The customer gets a refund. You submit a claim. The courier offers compensation that covers a fraction of the loss, disputes responsibility or issues a credit you now have to check against a future invoice.

Your rate went down. You’re still out of pocket.

The last-mile industry has spent years treating the price per parcel as the headline measure of a good deal. Retailers push rates down. Suppliers compete to meet them. The cost of dealing with everything that goes wrong gets less attention.

We need to change what counts as a saving.

At Anansi, we believe retailers should judge value by the financial outcome: the service they receive, the losses they recover and the money that reaches their account. That belief shapes how we approach invoice accuracy, protection and claims.

Why the money doesn’t come back

Retailers often discover the limitations of courier compensation after a loss.

Compensation can be capped well below the value of the goods. Claim deadlines and evidence requirements can make recovery difficult. A credit may settle a claim on paper while leaving finance to reconcile it before the business receives the benefit.

And the courier responsible for the delivery may also decide whether the claim is valid.

That arrangement deserves scrutiny. The retailer relies on its supplier to investigate its own performance and determine what it owes. Challenging the decision takes time, evidence and persistence.

Meanwhile, the retailer has already dealt with the customer.

A refund or replacement cannot wait for a prolonged argument about responsibility. The business carries the cost while its teams chase recovery. Sometimes they stop because the amount at stake no longer justifies the work.

That unpaid loss belongs beside the delivery rate when anyone assesses the contract.

We reward the wrong number

A saving of a few pence per parcel is easy to calculate and easy to present.

Money lost through unsuccessful claims, partial compensation and billing errors is harder to pull together. It sits across logistics, customer service and finance. The hours spent chasing it rarely appear in the buying decision.

So the negotiated saving gets recognised. The cost of securing it gets scattered across the business.

This also explains why better protection can be a difficult sell. Its price appears as a new expense. The losses it could replace have become familiar write-offs.

Retailers deserve a business case that includes both.

Paying less for a service that leaves more losses on your balance sheet is an expensive way to save money.

Put recovery into the brief

The industry will change when buyers make recovery part of supplier selection and contract reviews.

Ask suppliers to explain what happens after a delivery fails. How much of the loss is recoverable? Who decides whether it qualifies? Does settlement arrive as cash or a credit? How long does it take?

Then compare those answers with your own experience.

Look at the money actually received against eligible losses. Check whether promised credits reached the account. Establish how much work your team did to get there.

A claims process should be judged on its results. Counting submitted or approved claims gives an incomplete picture when payments remain outstanding.

The same applies to invoice checking. Identifying an overcharge is useful. Getting it corrected is the financial result.

Finance needs a seat at this conversation, because finance can confirm whether the promised recovery happened.

Anansi starts with the outcome

Anansi is designed to pay legitimate claims and help retailers reduce the losses that created them.

Our approach connects independent shipment tracking, invoice checking and regulated insurance with automated claims. The purpose is practical: recover money owed, reduce the work involved and give retailers evidence they can use to improve performance.

Clear cover matters. So does a claims decision that can be explained. Retailers should understand what qualifies and what will be paid before they need to claim.

Recovery also creates an opportunity to investigate. Repeated damage to a particular product deserves attention. Missing parcels concentrated around a service or postcode need examination. A drop in claims success should prompt a review of the evidence, potential fraud and how eligibility is being determined.

Paying legitimate claims and preventing avoidable losses both strengthen the retailer’s position.

Change what earns the credit

Procurement teams will keep negotiating on price. They should.

But the business needs to reward the result of the whole arrangement. A lower rate is one contribution. Better delivery performance, effective recovery and less time spent resolving failures also protect margin.

Give those outcomes an owner. Measure them at renewal. Require suppliers to show what they delivered after something went wrong.

At the next contract review, ask for the rate. Then ask what the last contract actually delivered.

How much did you lose? How much did you recover? How much work did it take?

And how much of the money you were promised actually reached your account?