First-Mile / Pickup — The pickup leg — from your warehouse to the courier's origin hub. Either the courier collects on a schedule, or you drop at their counter.

Why it matters to your store

Missed pickups are a hidden SLA killer — your '2-day delivery' becomes 3 if today's manifest leaves tomorrow. Daily pickup cut-offs matter more than transit speed.

This is the vocabulary every courier invoice, NDR report and rate card is written in — learn it once, save money forever.

See how →

Worked example

Book by 2 pm → rider collects in the evening manifest → parcel hits the hub tonight. Book at 5 pm → it waits a day.

The bottom line

Shipping jargon is really just the billing manual in disguise — every term on this list maps to a line on an invoice or a lever on your margins. Pure Parcel is built so you rarely have to think about it: statuses normalise, bills reconcile, and quotes already include the surcharges.