We’ve had a tip off from Tamebay reader Andy that Yodel have suspended all collections. Due to unprecedented parcel volumes Yodel they won’t be picking up any more parcels until Monday 15th December at the earliest.
As well as affecting all direct Yodel customers, this will also affect retailers who use sites such as DespatchBay, Parcel2Go and other parcel booking sites who normally offer Yodel as an option. If you look at the Parcel2Go website today they’ve updated messaging to Yodel collections on Monday “If you book in the next 102 hours”!
Of course it’s likely that if people simply carry on booking collections for Monday, that Yodel still won’t be able to cope with volumes. The only sensible course of action is to kick in your shipping plans with alternative couriers.
It’s worth bearing in mind that it’s not just Yodel who are struggling to keep up with parcel volumes. Amazon also have hit capacity and earlier suspended next day delivery for their customers. Products I purchased from Amazon on the 1st of December were scheduled to be delivered on the 4th – Thursday last week. They eventually turned up yesterday, a full five days late. This sort of tardy service is unheard of from Amazon but is simply the result of more people shopping online than ever before.
Yodel have told retailers that they are running out of trailers as they are currently parked up and full with the backlog and in order to process this backlog and reposition the trailer fleet they have to postpone all Service Centre Collections. They added that by taking this drastic step they are confident that will be in a position to resume normal operations on Monday with 24h packages entering their network scheduled for delivery the following day.
Yodel volumes will also likely impact Collect Plus deliveries who have a note on their website saying “We are still seeing higher than planned parcel volumes on all our services, unfortunately resulting in some deliveries taking up to 3 days longer than usual”.
Whilst it’s regrettable that Yodel have hit capacity it’s not through lack of preparation. They’ve put an extra 200 HGVs and 500 trailers on the road to prepare for Christmas as well as an additional 13 sites to handle the predicted increase in parcel volumes. They’ve also been stock piling rock salt, snow shovels, ice melt, de-icer scrapers and even snow ploughs to ensure the trucks keep moving.
It would appear that there are simply way more parcels than ever being shipped and the estimated 15% increase Yodel prepared for has been surpassed. However on the plus side their communications on website and through their partners has been excellent. Whilst you may be cursing that you have to find an alternative courier, at least they’ve taken steps to stop capacity problems snowballing and they’ve let us all know we need to put our emergency plans into action.
We have just heard from Dick Stead, executive chairman of Yodel who told us:
“We are working hard to process the unprecedented volume of parcels, which are due to the recent, well documented, retail promotions.
There is no suspension to our delivery service and we are working with all our clients to manage the flow into our network across this Thursday and Friday. This will include a temporary suspension on some of our collections, with normal service being resumed across Friday, the weekend and into next Monday“.
25 Responses
XDP are still accepting parcels, but not answering phones/emails, and appear to be several days behind schedule, without even a hint of regret or warning.
I’m still sore from the last time we used Yodel, i’m not jumping back on that wagon any time soon, but glad to see they’ve improved (to be honest, the only way they could get worse than my last experience is if they just set fire to the parcels in front of you).
thank the wee chap for DPD.
We should all be pleased I reckon as with Amazon and Yodel and no doubt others struggling it clearly shows online shopping volumes are only going one way. More pie for us all to share
Online shopping may be going one way however ebay feedback is going in the other direction. No compromise or cancellation there of from ebay!
I’m suprised people are still using these idiots. I used them for about 2 months and was badly bitten. I’ve never had so many complaints from my customers, at least 1 per day.
They may be reasonably cheap, but you get exactly what you pay for. Ones that stick in the mind: I had 3 seperate parcels take 14, 21 and then 30 days to arrive (this was mid-year). Parcels lobbed over peoples fences, left in dustbins on collection day, left out in the rain or didn’t even bother to try and deliver parcels but of course said they had…
I think Interlink have damaged 1 parcel in 4000+ shipments so far, zero complaints, not a peep from anyone.
Yodel are full of crap TBH, I’ve been waiting 2 days for a next day delivery from Ebuyer. They won’t communicate with me and it’s stuck in Hayes Depot and is scanned every day. But never makes it to a van.
They deserve their tattered rep and do not deserve anybodies business.
I have experienced an appalling service from Yodel and will certainly never use them again. I had a parcel delivered to me by Parcelforce and that didn`t seem to have any difficulty with “unprcedented volumes” as a result of Black Friday etc. Frankly I believe that to be a convenient excuse for very poor levels of service.
Furthermore, trying to contact Yodel to ask why something has gone wrong is well nigh impossible. There is distinct silence despite trying to get through.
I will, in future, happily pay a little bit more with alternative companies to obtain the higher standards of service than I have experienced so far with Yodel.
As I write my parcel has been sitting in a depot in Maidstone since the 4th December waiting to be delivered! It`s the 11th December now.
They could start by employing their couriers on full-time contracts
not surprised, Yodel took 8 days to deliver from 10 miles away on 72 hr delivery, Defective service. Clearly inadequate preparation.
Pride comes before a fall… four weeks ago they had everything covered…
https://www.supplychaindigital.com/logistics/3697/Yodel-unveils-its-plans-to-weather-the-Christmas-rush
Royal Mail holding up so far. Not as good as last year but clearly better than Yodel, Amazon, Collect + etc. Most mail arriving 1 day late only or on time.
Is this because retailers aren’t using them so much or because they are better organised? Amazon may wish to review their in house logistics ideas. Vertical integration was discredited years ago as a way to do business. Focus on your core business. Get specialists to handle the non-core – like delivery.
I have a parcel that was supposedly dispatched on the 8th and it’s not even showing as picked up by Yodel yet, the sending company is about 10 miles from me so god knows when that will happen and then it will be another 3 or 4 days after it’s collected before it’s delivered.
Still, think of all the money that eBay will be saving by not having to discount fees as defects rack up with buyers querying parcel non-arrivals.
I had 2 parcels collected by Yodel on 3rd Dec (sent on a 48 hour service). Neither have arrived! Tracked them both and BOTH have sat in a depot for 7 DAYS!!! Contacted livechat and was told that the delay was due to unprecedented bookings over the weekend. However my parcels were collected on the Wed before and should have been delivered on the Friday BEFORE their ‘unprecedented’ volumes. They offered no explanation for that AND refused to refund the cost!
Also the price on their Yodeldirect site has gone up twice in two days. Price went up from around £7 to over £8 and then yesterday it was over £12
The delvery people dont turn up but say the do, rubbish service
So I will have to wait an extra couple of weeks for Yodel to throw my parcels over the back fence. Hard to believe that amazon have a share in them.
It seems that Royal Mail are also struggling.
Just had an email to say that the last 1st class posting day is Saturday 20th. That is a surprise to me and pretty much kills that last weekend of sales as last minute shoppers find out they have to pay through the nose for pre Christmas delivery.
Royal Mail Tracked deliveries are in general arriving within 48 hours – the main problem is with DMO frequently being down.
It is not just Yodel who are having serious issues.
Last week and this week we have seen delays of 1-2 days with inbound shipments from suppliers via DPD due to major issues at their Peterborough hub.
Thankfully their sister company Interlink Express who handle our outbound shipments are holding up well with no delays to date.
Royal Mail are also doing OK but we are seeing a small increase in delays and ‘lost’ parcels which we expected.
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There is something in the wind….
I was in the UKmail, dockland’s depot the other evening dropping a few special parcels off.
Usually when I have done this, the yard is quite empty, just 1/2 dozen trailer/cabs being loaded to go off to the central hub/other depots.
What I saw was over 15 small collection/delivery vans waiting to get into the warehouse to unload their collections. & this was @ nearly 8pm.
Volumes must be way up, but we are not into Xmas stuff so a quite time for us….. Good luck all!!
I had issues getting stock in from UPS, UK Mail, and Parcelforce. I sent out about 400 items on Monday Royal Mail 1st class have had a few late ones in the south of England
. Am actually away to send half my inventory to Amazon and take it from Ebay to try out PRIME instead off sending out all my orders myself.
Yodel proudly say in their Christmas preparation press release , that they began recruitment for the busy Christmas period in September.
No wonder they’re in trouble. I signed off my Interlink depot’s Christmas plan in June, first advert in July. You really do get what you pay for, don’t you?