Whilst there’s little doubt that mail services will be severely disrupted during industrial action it’s worth highlighting what Royal Mail themselves are doing to keep mail moving through their network.
Royal Mail Premium services such as Special Delivery and Royal Mail Tracked items will still be delivered on strike days. Although delivery guarantees will be suspended during industrial action at most I’m guessing there will be no more than a day’s delay for premium services.
Over 900 managers and contract drivers will be drafted in to move mail around the country, and although business collections may be suspended but alternatives to getting mail into the system are Post Offices and Mail Centres which will remain open. Collections from Post Offices and pillar boxes may be less frequent than normal so best advice is to post as early in the day as possible.
Royal Mail have additional sorting and distribution capacity in the form of five large fully staffed sites to aid the distribution of packets through their network. This should assist eBayers as few items sold online are small enough to be shipped as letters.
It’s also worth another reminder that ParcelForce services should be unaffected by strike action and both Express 24 and Express 48 services can be purchased on eBay with PayPal postage.
32 Responses