In the aftermath of the snow which is rapidly disappearing across most of the country sellers are understandably concerned about eBay Detailed Seller Ratings and Amazon A-Z claims from missing parcels. As is usual with ecommerce there aren’t many truly “missing” parcels, but they have simply been delayed and will be delivered safely.
Royal Mail have announced a £20 million investment in additional measures to deal with most severe weather in 30 years. They have put in place significant extra resources being deployed in the North East, Midlands and Scotland with 3,000 more people recruited to support the Christmas operation over the next two weeks.
Normal services is still going ahead and 6,500 extra postmen and women carried out delivery rounds, primarily packets, yesterday (Sunday), delivering to around one million addresses. They also have 500 additional professional HGV drivers and an extra 250 large lorries taken on to complement the existing fleet.
These actions are on top of Royal Mail’s already announced Christmas programme. It includes the recruitment of up to an additional 20,000 people and extended opening hours at all Royal Mail’s 1,400 local delivery offices.
“We are pulling out all the stops to deliver this Christmas. The worst December weather the UK has seen in almost 30 years has had an impact on our services to some parts of the country. With this additional £20m investment, we are committed to ensure we deliver letters and packets as quickly as possible.
Our people are doing a great job in very challenging conditions. I would like to thank them for their tremendous efforts to ensure we continue to deliver right up until Christmas Eve.
– Mark Higson, Managing Director, Royal Mail
28 Responses
500 additional professional HGV drivers and an extra 250 large lorries taken on to complement the existing fleet.
means nowt if they are stuck on the motorways
bbc are reporting that tescos parcel force and others are not taking orders in Scotland
DHL have disappeared this week urgent express mail is just sitting looking at us,
so its all a load of tosh, were shutting shop and sucking on our icicles
And nowts rapidly diassapearing up here, apart from our profit
lots of snow ice freezing fog flood and brass monkeys looking for welders
From a topic in the eBay forum:-
Snow in Scotland has forced supermarket giants Tesco and Sainsbury’s to stop taking online orders from customers north of the border.
“We apologise for any inconvenience, but unfortunately we are currently unable to take any new orders in Scotland & the Scottish Isles,” reads a statement on the Tesco Direct website.
“This is due to the adverse weather conditions causing a build up of orders. However, if you have already placed an order we will do our very best to deliver your items as soon as possible.”
Scots have had the worst of the recent snow, with some motorists stranded in their cars for days.
“Adverse weather in parts of the country is affecting some deliveries. We will deliver your parcel as soon as we can. If you have already placed an order we’ll get it to you as soon as possible,” the Sainsbury’s website tells customers.
“We have temporarily suspended deliveries to Scotland and some parts of North-East England, if you are affected you will not be able to place an order.”
Parcel Force did the same at the weekend, while high volume online traders like Amazon and Firebox are struggling to guarantee next-day delivery.
“Whilst we will continue to deliver as many parcels each day as we possibly can, if we accept more parcels for the affected areas it will make recovery from the current position exceedingly difficult,” Parcel Force said.
Sellers pull out all the stops and all we get for our efforts is kicked in the ********* by eBay!
(Or the equivalent area of pain if you are a lady!)
I just love the buyer, that says’
‘Well there no Snow here & my mail is getting through’, SO & implying it’s our fault………
Contrary to official Royal Mail it does tend to be “first in last out” in problematic circumstances. Items trapped in the system have a habit of remaining there, while more recently posted items whizz through.
items posted on the 30th Nov seem to be a problem for us at the moment…Anyone else?
BigPoppa – us too 29th and 30th although some of it is now getting through.
Chris, is there any word from eBay about suspending Dispatch Time DSRs?
It looks as if while its mild at present and most of the snow and ice has gone that theres another lot on its way starting on Thursday this week and that probably means that we will have it until after Christmas. I only hope that ALL of what I have sent out so far arrives while there is a thaw because I can expect that once the next lot is with us that we will see nothing moving at all. Remember all Man Made Global Warming says that we will never again have a harsh winter.
26th 27th 28th 29th 30th
of nov and most of december are erratic some delivered next day others out there somewhere,
where is my item emails coming at us like confetti
how the bloody hell do we know where the effin item is,
Speaking to Royal Mail today they told me the RM Tracked service has ‘completely collapsed’, since last week with no parcels sent by RM Tracked are being scanned at the outward mail centre. I’m not sure if it is just out mail centre but non of our Tracked items have been scanned since Friday 3rd.
Customer services also confirmed a lot of delivery offices are pre-scanning items as delivered so tracking showing as delivered means nothing.
Now is the time when we need the scanned info but instead all we are getting is “The sender has advised us that item ******* will be posted into the Royal Mail network on the 2010-12-06.” when we check the tracking. Today alone I have received over 60 delivery enquires and so have had to shut down Amazon completely.
Going back to the original posting £20 million invested. 250 large lorries(I take it that means articulated lorries) and 500 drivers. I would doubt if that means that they have bought 250 lorries. Far more likely that they have phoned round the haulage contractors and hired 250 lorries. The drivers also will be hired from the haulage contractors. The other personnel would be the usual casual employees that they take on at this time of year-only perhaps a few more than usual. So where does this £20 million invested come from? Even the RM cannot be so foolish as to buy 250 lorries for just 2 weeks work. So a £20 million invested gives a nice headline but is it reality. After all if they had purchased 250 lorries they would have to wait for deliveries etc from the factory and they would be well into the New Year before they can be expected to arrive. Usual RM pseudo-headline grabbing press release in fact they have invested little or nothing.