Online shopping is gaining more and more ground: you get to pick out items from the comfort of your desktop and have them delivered directly to your doorstep. Parcel is a stylish little app that can help you track each shipment and receive notifications on all delivery updates.
Parcel comes with client apps for both Mac desktops and iOS devices and with a synchronization service that will update the changes on all your devices (an account is required for the sync feature). Noteworthy is that Parcel has certain limitations and that you need to get a Premium subscription (renewable each year) to take advantage of everything it has to offer.
By default, Parcel provides support for more than 240 mail delivery services scattered all over the world: you can see the complete list of supported couriers on the developer’s website. In addition, you can ask the developer to add support for a specific service by sending a sample tracking number.
In terms of usability, the Parcel app sports a fairly intuitive workflow that should not raise too many problems: to add a new delivery, simply enter the shipment tracking number, select the courier service, and Parcel will go online and pull the delivery information. The associated Settings menu offers you the possibility to check the shipment details on the source website, which will be launched in your default web browser.
Optionally, you can add a custom name to your delivery so that you will know what the package contains. If you choose to skip this step, Parcel will automatically generate a tag that includes the current date and the name of the courier service.
Within the app’s main window you can see a list with all the packages tracked by Parcel and the corresponding delivery information, in text format or on a map. In the latter case, a separate pin is generated for each checking point, and you can easily navigate between them by using the arrow keys.
Furthermore, Parcel integrates basic filters for the packages list: you can see only the active or only the completed deliveries, sorted by name, date added, last updated, or estimated delivery date (if available).
Parcel also integrates seamlessly into your system: you can view the status of a specific delivery monitored by the app within the Spotlight panel, and you can add a new delivery entry by using a keyboard combination. Even though the Parcel hotkey works system wide, if the active app uses the same keyboard shortcut for another task, that one takes over the Parcel function.
Worth mentioning is that you have to manually refresh the shipment info: granted, if you have a Premium account, you get to push alerts to the Notification Center, but if you do not want to activate that feature, the app will check for new data only on manual refresh. The developers also warn that it might be an up to 90 minutes delay between the source delivery website and Parcel.
As far as resources usage is concerned, on a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 6GB RAM, Parcel uses almost no CPU power on standby and up to 9% of the CPU power and 140MB RAM on refresh if you are adding new deliveries or performing any other maintenance task. Of course, it also depends on the number of shipments you are tracking.
The Good
Once you create an account and purchase a yearly subscription, Parcel can also push delivery notifications to both your Mac and your iOS devices. What’s more, the app also makes it possible to receive alerts by email.
Parcel offers support for a large collection of courier services all over the world, and the database extends with each new release. However, keep in mind that the quality of the information depends greatly on the delivery service itself.
The Bad
Moreover, you cannot choose to archive the deliveries that have been completed: you have the option to hide them, but if the courier service decides to delete the tracking number from its servers, the info is lost. Bottom line, if you want to keep a record with all your shipments, Parcel is not up for the task.
The Truth
What the app brings to the table is its stylish and well-organized user interface, the fact that it can sync the tracking database between your devices, and the capability to send notifications when the delivery status changes.
In conclusion, if you are frequently shopping online, Parcel is a great tool to have around for monitoring the shipment of your products in a centralized manner and to identify possible delivery problems as soon as possible.