Evri and InPost (Formerly Yodel) Explained: The UK’s Budget Couriers and Their Tracking Quirks

It is an ordinary Tuesday lunchtime. You nip home between meetings and there is nothing on the doormat. Then your phone buzzes: Evri tracking has flipped to “delivered to safe place”, and underneath sits a photograph of a grey recycling bin and what might be the corner of a parcel.

You walk round the side of the house. Behind the bin, wedged next to the drainpipe, is your order. Dry, intact, and about eight feet from where you would have put it yourself.

That is the whole Evri and InPost experience in one scene. The parcel almost always turns up, just with odd language, a photo that looks like evidence from a crime drama, and a tracking page that went quiet for most of yesterday.

Deep breath. Here is how the UK’s two budget couriers, Evri and InPost (the company that used to be Yodel), work, what their statuses mean, and what to do on the rare occasion the photo shows a bin and the bin shows nothing.

Who Evri and InPost Are, and Why Your Retailer Picked Them

Neither is a postal service. Both are private networks built to move enormous volumes of small, low-value boxes for retailers who count pennies per parcel.

Evri, the Company Formerly Known as Hermes

Evri is what Hermes UK became in March 2022, a rebrand designed to put distance between the new name and the old reputation. In October 2025 it absorbed DHL’s UK e-commerce arm, now trading as Evri Premium, making it one of the largest parcel carriers in the country, with more than 9,000 ParcelShops and lockers.

InPost, the Company That Used to Be Yodel

This one changed under everyone’s feet. InPost, the locker company, bought Yodel in April 2025, ran it as “Yodel by InPost” for a year, and on 17 July 2026 retired the Yodel name altogether. The home-delivery vans, the lockers and the shops now run as one InPost network, and tracking, the app and support all live under the InPost name.

What Happens to Your Old Yodel Tracking Number

Nothing dramatic. The number still works; you just look it up on the InPost website or in the InPost app rather than Yodel’s, which are being switched off. Your retailer’s checkout and dispatch emails may still say “Yodel” well into 2027, so if an order says Yodel and the text message says InPost, that is the same parcel, not two.

Why Retailers Choose Them

Price, mostly, plus photo proof of delivery, which cuts refund claims. That is why fast-fashion and marketplace orders lean on them: Vinted lists Evri and InPost among its built-in postage options, and SHEIN and Temu orders in the UK are routinely handed to Evri or InPost for the final leg.

How to Read Evri Tracking Without Panicking

Evri’s tracking language is chatty and friendly, which is lovely right up until you need to know precisely where your parcel is.

“Parcel Is on Its Way to Evri”

The retailer has printed a label. Evri has not touched the parcel yet. This status can sit for days if the shop is slow to dispatch, and it is the biggest single cause of “Evri tracking not updating” worry. Nothing is stuck; nothing has started.

“We’ve Got It” and “On Its Way to You”

“We’ve got it” is the first physical scan: your parcel exists and is in an Evri hub. “On its way to you” means it is moving towards your local depot. Expect a quiet day here; parcels travel overnight in bulk and are usually only scanned again on arrival.

“Out for Delivery” and the One-Hour Window

Now it is on the courier’s round. On the morning of delivery Evri sends a one-hour window, worked out from the order the courier plans to drive the route, so it cannot be predicted the night before, and because it is one person in one van, it can slip.

“Delivered”, “Delivered to Safe Place” and “Delivered to Neighbour”

If the parcel went anywhere other than your hands, Evri takes a photo, and the tracking page shows that photo, a map pin of where delivery was recorded, and the courier’s name. Zoom in before you assume the worst. If you instead see “we tried to deliver”, Evri makes up to three attempts on consecutive working days before the parcel heads to a ParcelShop or the depot.

How InPost Tracking Reads (Yodel’s Old Wording Included)

Some of Yodel’s old wording still shows through on the InPost tracking page while the migration settles. “We’ve got your order details” is the label-created stage, the same limbo as Evri’s “on its way to Evri”. “We have your parcel” and “at your local depot” are the real scans. “Out for delivery” comes with a two-hour window rather than Evri’s one hour, and InPost warns it can take until around 11am to appear.

Delivery is confirmed with a photo or a signature. If the driver misses you, InPost tries up to three more times, and the app lets you reschedule, change the address or divert to a locker.

Evri Delivery Times and Sunday Drops

The honest answer to “when will it come?” is: within a window the courier sets on the day, on a date the retailer chose when it paid for postage.

Evri Delivery Times

Standard Evri delivery times run two to four days from the first scan, with next-day services for retailers who pay for them. Couriers deliver between 8am and 8pm, seven days a week, Sunday included, though a Sunday slot is not guaranteed for every service.

InPost Delivery Times

Home and locker deliveries, the old Yodel rounds included, now run on one InPost network. The estimated date sits on the tracking page and the two-hour window arrives on the morning itself.

Evri Safe Place Rules and What the Photo Is Really For

A courier deciding your parcel belongs behind the recycling bin feels cavalier. It is, in fact, following a rulebook.

What Counts as a Safe Place

Evri’s guidance is that a safe place must keep the parcel dry, keep it out of sight, and be reachable without drama. Porches, sheds, garages and parcel boxes all qualify. You set one in the Evri app or on the tracking page, can upload a photo of it, and get one preference only: a safe place or a preferred neighbour, not both.

InPost’s rules are near-identical: out of sight of passing traffic, dry in the rain, set in the app before the attempt. If the sender demanded a signature, the driver tries a neighbour instead.

If You Never Set One

Here is the bit people miss. With no safe place on file, an Evri courier will still look for one “where possible”. That is how the bin happens: a dry alcove hidden from the street qualifies. Set a preference and the guesswork stops.

The Photo, the Map and the Signature

Both carriers photograph anything left unattended, so you can find it and so the retailer has evidence if you dispute the delivery. Look at the photo before you look for the parcel, and if it shows a door that is not yours, screenshot it immediately. That screenshot is the core of any later claim.

ParcelShops, Lockers and the Divert Button

Both networks would genuinely prefer you used a shop or a locker. It is cheaper for them and often more reliable for you.

Evri ParcelShops and Lockers

Most retailers let you pick an Evri ParcelShop or locker at checkout, and many let you divert a parcel already on its way, from the tracking page, up to about fifteen minutes before it is due. Locker parcels give you three days to collect with an emailed barcode; ParcelShops hold parcels for a limited window before returning them.

InPost Lockers

InPost’s whole business is lockers, and Yodel’s shop network has been folded into it. From the InPost app you can divert a home delivery to a locker or shop and collect with the code it sends.

Evri vs InPost: The Reference Table

When Evri Tracking Is Not Updating, or Says Delivered but Isn’t

Both carriers publish what they consider “too long”, and both agree your retailer should be the one chasing them.

Why Tracking Goes Quiet for a Day

Parcels are scanned when they enter a building and when they leave it, not on the trailer in between, so a day with no updates in the “on its way” phase is normal. Evri’s line is that once a parcel has not scanned for two working days after its estimated date, raise an enquiry. InPost’s threshold is 72 hours. Before that, the silence is boring rather than sinister.

Step 1: Check the Photo, the Neighbours and the Bins

If the status says delivered, open the photo and the map pin, then check porches, sheds, bins, meter cupboards and neighbours. InPost’s own guidance asks for exactly this before you contact them, and Evri’s photo usually settles it in thirty seconds.

Step 2: Tell the Retailer, Not the Courier

Your contract is with the shop. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 the seller is responsible for getting goods to you, and both Evri and InPost tell you to report a missing retailer parcel to the retailer first so it can open an investigation. Going to the courier directly mostly earns a polite redirect.

Step 3: Escalate If the Retailer Stalls

Keep screenshots of the tracking page, the photo and every message. If the retailer has not resolved things within eight weeks, an alternative dispute resolution scheme or a card chargeback is the fallback.

How to Make This Never Happen Again

You cannot change how a courier works, but you can remove most of the surprise.

• Set a safe place, with a photo, in both the Evri and InPost apps.

• Choose a locker or ParcelShop at checkout for anything you would hate to find in a hedge.

• Turn on delivery-day notifications so the window actually reaches you.

• Screenshot every “delivered” photo the moment it lands.

• Track everything in one place: a universal tracker such as Parcel Monitor reads both Evri and InPost numbers, and Email Sync pulls tracking out of order confirmations.

The Recycling-Bin Summary

Evri is the old Hermes, now bigger than ever; InPost is the new name for Yodel, vans and all. Both scan parcels at buildings rather than in transit, so a quiet day mid-journey is normal. Both send a delivery-day window on the morning itself, Evri one hour and InPost two. Both will pick a safe place if you have not set one, and both photograph it, so look at the picture before you look for the parcel. If it is truly missing, or tracking has been silent past Evri’s two working days or InPost’s 72 hours, tell the retailer.

What to Do the Next Time Evri Goes Quiet

Back to that Tuesday lunchtime. You are standing by the recycling bin, parcel in hand, mildly annoyed and quietly relieved. That is the normal outcome; a slightly odd safe place is the price of a delivery that cost the retailer very little and you nothing.

Give the system fewer decisions to make: set your safe place, pick a locker when it matters, and treat the photo as the first place you look. The parcel will almost always be there.

Two couriers, two apps, one photo of a bin: Parcel Monitor lines up every Evri and InPost scan on a single page, so you know which side of the house to check before you have even parked.