Delivery guide
Where a delivery actually goes wrong, venue by venue.
Most failed or delayed deliveries are not bad luck: they repeat at the same handful of venue types. Hotels that will not hold a parcel. Exhibition stands that only accept freight on build up days. Apartments with no concierge. This guide walks through every venue type that needs extra care, drawn from the same delivery notice we send with every pro forma, so you get the details right before you order, not after a courier has given up.
Once shipped, the courier is in control
We arrange dispatch and provide tracking, but we do not operate the courier network and cannot control what happens in transit. Dates are estimates, never guarantees.
A local phone number is essential
Couriers routinely call ahead before delivering to businesses, events or apartments, and many will not call a foreign number. It is the single most common cause of a failed delivery.
Standard cannot become express once shipped
The delivery service is fixed at the moment of dispatch. If you need express, tell us before we ship, never after.
01
Trade shows, exhibitions & events
Exhibition venues, from Hamburg Messe to Fira de Barcelona, ExCeL London, Messe Frankfurt and Palexpo Geneva, run on a schedule built for construction and freight, not for shop-hours delivery. Get the timing or the paperwork wrong and a parcel that would arrive perfectly well at an office sits in storage, gets charged for, or is turned away at the hall door.
Three windows, not one
Every show has a build up period, the open days, and a tear down period, and each has different rules. Freight is only accepted during build up, on the dates the organiser sets, never on the show's opening date itself. Nothing new can arrive once the doors open to visitors. Tear down is often a single day with a hard deadline: anything left on the stand after that point is disposed of or stored at your cost.
Shell scheme or space only changes who delivers
A shell scheme stand, the standard modular booth the organiser builds, generally accepts deliveries the same way any other stand does. A space only stand, where you or your contractor build a custom structure, is usually handled by that appointed stand contractor instead, often with its own earlier access window before the shell scheme areas open at all.
The official show forwarder usually is not optional
Most major venues route freight through one official logistics partner, DSV is one of the largest and most frequently appointed, rather than letting an outside courier drive up to the loading bay. That forwarder typically handles customs formalities for anything crossing a border, storage of empty crates during the show itself, and the final delivery to your specific stand on schedule.
The paperwork that actually matters
Almost every venue requires a freight or handling form before anything is accepted. Road freight needs a CMR consignment note. If you are bringing demonstration equipment or samples that need to leave the country again afterwards rather than being sold, an ATA Carnet is usually the right document, it lets the same goods cross a border twice, once in and once out, without paying import duty each time.
A parcel timed to arrive on opening day is already too late. Freight that misses the build up window is stored, charged, or turned away, and there is rarely anyone with the authority to make an exception on site.
- The exact hall and stand number
- The organiser's approved build up dates, not the show's opening date
- Whether your stand is shell scheme or space only, and the contractor's name if it is space only
- The name of the official show forwarder, if the venue requires one
- An on-site contact with a local mobile number
Where the venue allows it, shipping to a nearby hotel or office and hand-carrying the last stretch to the stand is often the safer route for anything small enough to carry.
02
Hotels
Hotel reception is built for guests checking in with a suitcase, not freight arriving days ahead of them. Whether a parcel is accepted, held, or refused outright depends far more on which hotel and which team you reach than on anything written on the label.
Front desk and the events team are not the same door
An individual reservation goes through ordinary front desk staff, who have every reason to say no to a box with no guest standing in front of them. A group room block for a conference or a company trip usually has a dedicated groups or events coordinator attached to the booking, and that person can generally accept freight on the group's behalf, arrange a holding area, and match it to the right guest on arrival. Ask for that contact by name if your booking is part of a block.
A chain policy is not a guarantee at any one property
Large international chains often have a written parcel-handling policy, which sounds reassuring, but head-office policy and what an individual property actually does on a busy week can differ. Independent and boutique hotels rarely have any written policy at all and decide case by case, sometimes based on nothing more than who is on shift that day.
Even a hotel that says yes has limits
Acceptance is rarely unconditional. Many properties cap how many days they will hold a parcel before the guest arrives, how large or heavy it can be, and some charge a handling or storage fee per item or per day once those limits are reached.
The safer alternative, where one exists
A hotel's business centre, if it has one, is sometimes a separate, more reliable receiving point with its own staff used to packages. Where that is not available, a nearby office address, even a local partner's or a colleague's, removes the guesswork entirely.
We cannot make a hotel accept or keep your delivery. That confirmation has to come from the property, or the group's events coordinator, directly and before you order, not from us after something has gone wrong.
- Written confirmation from the hotel or the group's events coordinator that it will accept and hold the delivery
- The booking or guest name, exactly as held at reception, and the group or block name if relevant
- The dates the parcel may arrive and the dates the guest is in-house
- Any size, weight or day limit the property has stated
- A local mobile number for the guest or organiser
Where a business centre or an office address is available instead, it is almost always the more reliable choice for anything time-sensitive.
03
Apartments & residential addresses
A residential address looks like the simplest kind of delivery on paper and is often the least reliable in practice. Nobody is paid to be there to receive a parcel, and the building itself rarely helps.
The locked door is the first failure point
Couriers frequently cannot get past a locked street door at all. Buzzers go unanswered during working hours, intercoms are faulty more often than buildings admit, and without a working entry system the courier cannot even reach the right floor to knock.
Serviced apartments are not the same as a private let
A serviced or corporate-housing apartment, the kind booked through a dedicated operator for a business stay, sometimes has a staffed reception similar to a small hotel, which changes the picture considerably. An ordinary private residential let or a short-term holiday rental almost never does, and the booking platform has no role in receiving anything on the guest's behalf.
Parcel lockers change the equation entirely
Where a building has a parcel locker system, or the area has a courier-operated pickup point nearby, addressing the delivery there rather than to the door removes the concierge problem altogether. It is worth checking before you assume a residential address is the only option.
Repeat attempts are the norm, not a sign something has gone wrong
Without a signature, most couriers will not leave a delivery unattended, so a missing or wrong floor or unit number, or simply nobody answering, produces a second and sometimes a third attempt before the parcel is finally returned to the depot. Each attempt adds a day.
Two or three failed delivery attempts is normal before a residential parcel is returned, not the exception. Every attempt adds days, and there is no way to fast-track a fourth attempt once a courier has stopped trying.
- Floor and unit number, written exactly as the building uses it
- Whether the address is a serviced apartment with reception or a private residential let
- A local mobile number for whoever is expected to answer the door
- Confirmation that someone will actually be in during the delivery window
A business address, a parcel locker or a courier pickup point is nearly always more reliable than a home address for anything time-sensitive.
04
Offices, co-working & serviced addresses
An office address sounds like the reliable option compared with a hotel or a home, and usually it is, but three specific traps catch business deliveries here more than anywhere else.
Reception matches the label, not your knowledge of the company
Reception has to recognise the company name exactly as it appears on the shipping label, not a trading name, a parent company or an abbreviation staff might use internally, or the parcel is turned away at the desk. Buildings also keep their own opening hours, and a delivery outside them is simply missed, however good the tracking looks.
Serviced office operators need their own reference, not just yours
Large serviced-office operators run reception for dozens of unrelated tenant companies from one desk, so a parcel addressed only with your company name and no account or membership reference can sit unclaimed while staff try to work out which tenant it belongs to. Many operators publish a specific delivery-labelling format for exactly this reason, and it is worth asking for it.
A virtual address is not a delivery address
Some business addresses exist purely for company registration or mail forwarding and have no physical reception at all, no desk, no staff, nobody to sign for anything. A courier arriving at a virtual address finds an empty lobby or another company entirely, and the delivery fails outright rather than merely being delayed. Confirm the address is a real, staffed location before you rely on it.
Large towers often route everything through one central dock
In bigger corporate buildings, an individual tenant's reception is frequently not where couriers deliver at all. Building security or a central goods-in dock handles every parcel for every company in the building, then distributes internally, which adds a step and a named contact matters even more.
A co-working or serviced-office address is not the same guarantee as a traditional company reception. Confirm the operator will accept the parcel, and check it is not a virtual-only address, before you rely on either.
- The company name exactly as reception or the operator holds it, plus any account or membership reference the operator requires
- Confirmation the address has a staffed reception, not a virtual or registration-only address
- Building or floor opening hours
- A named contact reachable by phone during those hours
Where the building routes deliveries through central security rather than a tenant's own desk, naming that in the delivery instructions in advance avoids the parcel being logged under the wrong company.
05
Universities, hospitals & large sites
A large institutional site is really a small town with one shared front door for deliveries, whatever its official name might suggest, and almost nothing arrives directly at the person who ordered it.
The central mailroom is the real address, not the institution
Large institutional sites route almost everything through a central mailroom rather than direct to the recipient, which routinely adds a day or more before a parcel reaches its actual destination. The institution's name alone is not enough as an address: without a specific department, ward or building, the parcel enters an internal routing chain nobody outside the institution controls, and can sit unclaimed for days.
One institution, many buildings, many names
A university or hospital campus can span dozens of separately named buildings, wings or blocks, sometimes with their own postcodes, and a mailroom serving thousands of people has no way to guess which one you mean from the institution's name alone. The exact building, floor and department, not just a campus or hospital name, is what actually routes the parcel correctly.
Term time and holiday periods are not the same institution
A university mailroom fully staffed during term time can run on a skeleton crew, or close entirely, during holiday periods and between semesters, exactly when many corporate orders are timed to arrive for a new academic year. Confirm the mailroom is actually operating on your delivery date, not just that the university exists.
Goods-in hours are often shorter than the site's opening hours
A hospital or large campus may be open to visitors or staff around the clock, while the specific goods-in entrance or loading dock that accepts deliveries keeps its own, much shorter hours. A parcel timed for the site's general opening hours can still arrive when nobody is at the goods-in gate to receive it.
The institution's name alone is not a deliverable address. Without a specific department, ward or building and a named contact, the parcel enters an internal system nobody outside it controls, and mailroom hours are not the same as the site's opening hours.
- The exact department, ward or building, not just the institution's name
- A named contact within that department
- Confirmation the mailroom or goods-in point is staffed on your delivery date, especially outside term time
- Any internal reference or order number the mailroom uses to route parcels
Where available, it is worth asking about a direct-to-recipient courier account that bypasses the central mailroom for time-sensitive orders.
06
Airports & ports
Airports and ports are working transport infrastructure first and a delivery address a distant second. Naming the facility is not the same as naming a place a courier can actually reach.
Airside and landside are two different worlds
The parts of an airport where aircraft, freight handlers and security-cleared staff operate are airside, and reaching them needs a security pass or prior clearance an ordinary courier does not carry. Deliveries generally have to go to a landside office, a cargo agent's counter, or a ground-handling company's own address instead, rather than to a gate or a specific aircraft stand directly.
The address has to name a company, not just the facility
An address that just says the airport or port name, with no company, no cargo terminal and no landside contact, is not deliverable. Courier and freight companies need a real ground-side recipient, the same as any other business address, whether that is a freight forwarder's own office, an airline's cargo department, or a ground-handling company like the ones that operate at most major European hubs.
Ports run on vessel schedules, not shop hours
Container terminals, at major hubs like Rotterdam, Antwerp or Hamburg, work to the arrival and departure schedule of ships and the booking slots of the terminal itself, not standard opening hours. A shipment sent without a pre-booked appointment or the correct terminal and berth reference can sit at the gate for days waiting for a slot, and most terminals will not simply accept a delivery on arrival the way a normal address would.
Bonded and customs warehouses add a formal layer
Goods awaiting customs clearance at an airport cargo village, such as Frankfurt's or Schiphol's, or at a port terminal, are frequently held in a bonded or customs warehouse until formalities are complete, which is a distinct facility from general storage and usually requires its own reference and authorised recipient to release anything from it.
An address that just names the airport or port, with no company, no cargo terminal and no landside contact, is not deliverable. Couriers need a real ground-side recipient, the same as any other delivery.
- The receiving company's name and its landside or cargo-terminal address, not the airport or port's general address
- A local mobile number for the ground contact
- Any security pass, appointment or terminal booking the site requires
- Whether the goods will pass through a bonded or customs warehouse, and the reference needed to release them
07
Remote, rural & islands
A postcode that looks perfectly normal on a form can sit hours, or a ferry crossing, from the nearest depot, and the standard delivery estimate that works for a capital city simply does not apply.
Islands are a different delivery network, not a slower version of the same one
Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic and Greek islands, and the Scottish Highlands and Islands are routinely served by a different logistics chain from the mainland, not merely a slower version of the same one, and surcharges usually apply on top of the standard rate. The distance on a map understates how much longer these routes genuinely take.
Ferries add a schedule you do not control
Where a delivery leg crosses water, it depends on a ferry timetable that runs on its own fixed sailings rather than on demand, and weather can cancel a crossing outright with little notice. A single missed sailing can cost an extra day or more, and there is no way to expedite the next one.
Not every courier reaches every rural postcode directly
Some legs of a rural delivery are handed to a secondary regional carrier who may only run to that specific area on certain days of the week, rather than daily, and tracking can go quiet during that handover with nothing visibly wrong. A courier's national coverage map does not always mean daily service everywhere on it.
Rural addresses do not always follow standard formatting
Street numbering can be inconsistent or absent in some rural areas, with properties identified by name rather than number, which a standard address field does not always capture well. Extra descriptive detail in the delivery instructions helps a driver who has never been there before.
- Extra transit days built into the delivery estimate from the start, not added as an afterthought when something is late
- A courier or route confirmed to serve the specific postcode, not just the region generally
- Any property name or landmark that helps identify the address, alongside the formal address
- A local mobile number, since call-ahead delivery is even more common in rural areas
08
Outside the EU: UK, Switzerland & Norway
Delivering to the United Kingdom, Switzerland or Norway adds a customs clearance step that a delivery inside the EU never sees. Each of the three works differently, and the receiver is usually the one who needs the right registration to clear the goods.
United Kingdom
Since the UK left the EU customs union, an import declaration and, in most cases, UK VAT apply on arrival, and the receiver typically needs an EORI number starting with GB rather than the EU-format number used inside the bloc. Under our standard terms, that VAT and any duty are the receiver's to pay unless DDP has been agreed in advance.
Switzerland
Switzerland sits outside the EU and outside the EU customs union entirely, so every shipment clears Swiss customs regardless of value, with import VAT charged in Swiss francs. A Swiss customs agent, whether appointed by the receiver or arranged through us under DDP, handles the formalities on the Swiss side.
Norway
Norway is inside the European Economic Area but outside the EU customs union, which means close alignment on many trade rules but a genuine customs border all the same. Import VAT is charged in Norwegian kroner, and Norwegian customs treat the shipment as an import from outside the EEA's customs territory in the same way the UK and Switzerland do.
This is the same DAP or DDP decision, and the same landed-cost estimate, that applies to any of our 67 destinations beyond Europe. The full breakdown, including freight timings and what cannot be exported, lives on our global delivery page.
Before you order
Patterns worth knowing
Northern and Western Europe, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Austria and the Nordics, tends to be fast and reliable. Southern Europe and its islands, Italy, Spain, Greece and the wider Mediterranean, generally moves slower, with a higher chance of delays, failed attempts and longer gaps in tracking. One delivery attempt is common everywhere in Europe: miss it and the parcel goes to a pickup point or back to the depot. Strikes, most often affecting France, Italy and Greece, and peak periods such as the Christmas run-up, add further delay. Customs checks on non-EU routes add days on top of that.
What we need from you, whatever the venue type
- The full delivery address, including floor, unit, stand or department
- A local phone number for the destination country, with the international dialling code
- A named recipient
- Any venue or building delivery rules, and the dates deliveries are accepted
- Someone available to receive the order
- If you need express, tell us before we ship
Timing
Every date we give is an estimate. Production starts once your proof is approved and payment has cleared; transit is added on top. We recommend allowing at least 5 working days for any order, and more for Southern Europe, islands, events or large quantities. If a date is tight, tell us early and we will do our best to help.
Thank you, a few minutes spent on the delivery details saves a great deal of hassle later. Any questions, reply to us at logistics@swishandclick.eu