eBay France have published a somewhat cryptic announcement regarding . The announcement roughly translates to:
“To better reflect market conditions during the summer period and to improve the estimation of our delivery, we adjusted the estimated delivery time of some shipping services. This increase is temporary and will end in early September.”
The announcement gives no reason for the increased delivery estimates (do La Poste or French couriers have a ‘go slow’ for the summer?) Is this something unique to France or are do other European countries also have changes to their market conditions in the summer months?
We’re a bit in the dark as to what’s going on, but thought you should know. After all if you ship to French buyers and the French delivery services are affected then the chances are it’ll affect any shipments you send to France as well (although eBay UK hasn’t yet made any announcement about adjusting estimated shipping times to France).
10 Responses
I commented about this issue on a previous article about Amazon deliveries.
We’ve had so many issues with parcels to France recently, it’s quite unbelievable. We contacted La Poste and Royal Mail to get answers but we got no useful information.
France is a big market for us and Amazon give French customers an unrealistic delivery time of 2 to 3 days. French customers write to us once 3 days have passed to complain the parcel is late. We’ve had negative feedback and we’ve had to send a lot of refunds.
What I gather from people emailing us back to say their parcels have finally arrived is that parcels actually take from 7 to 10 working days from the UK to France at the moment.
I am still trying to find out why. Replying to such a volume of emails and claims has been a nightmare. Good move Ebay, I hope Amazon follow suit
Haven’t I read somewhere that when the French go on their holidays in the summer the whole of France virtually shuts down because unlike say in the UK where not everyone does go away in France almost the whole country goes away, so presumably that will include the postmen and women and the couriers. Plus there will be loads of extra parcels stuck at depots that can’t be delivered.
Edit:
https://www.thelocal.fr/20130227/breaking-with-tradition-frances-summer-holidays
It used to be similar in the UK in the North of England only a generation or so ago.
My Mother is a Wigan Girl. She used to tell me about the policy in Lancashire when all the Mills in a particular town would close at the same time and just about everybody would go away to Blackpool by train. Then the next week all the Mills in another town would close and just about everybody would go away by train to Blackpool.
Obviously today all the Mills have closed and few go away by train to Blackpool. So I would be interested if the older Tamebay Readers from Lancashire would confirm what I said. After all I have never lived in Lancashire and my Mother is very ancient and lives in Austtralia so I cannot ask her to confirm that I am right.
Hi
Being French myself I speak from experience 🙂 Most French businesses close down over August and most French people will take the whole month of August as their annual holidays so La Poste has to rely on temporary staff during this period which goes a long way to explain all postal delays and issues one encounters during the Month of August in France.
c’est la vie! Bonne chance.
Jean-Francois Chodecki
La Poste have a sign on their counters to say that due to government legislation they can’t run lorries bigger than a certain weight for about 6 days over the summer and they give the dates…..at least that’s what I think it says !! I think it’s about pollution and trying to be a little green in their road use. It states the dates and says that if you take a parcel in it will actually leave them a day later than normal. So maybe this is the reason…..plus the fact they all head for the hills during the summer.
Large letter sized packets to France from UK seem to be delivered normally at the moment.
EG. Item posted 1/8 (Friday) to a small village in the Haute-Savoie near the Swiss border was received 5/8 (Tuesday).
There was also a problem in Germany in July, we had numerous customers asking where there parcels were.
I then had a helpful email on Monday from Royal Mail who said that there had been delays to Max Sort (destination sort) in Germany in July but this had been sorted. Perhaps a heads up in July would of been more helpful.
As mentioned by Jean-Francois, most of France is on holiday in August and services run at minimal efficiency. With that said, I’ve never had any problems receiving and sending in the month of August.
Although I have plenty to criticise regarding certain branches and staff at La Poste (very hit and miss depending on where you go), over the past 6 years they’ve always got my post to its destined target, and no problems receiving items too.