There have been postal strikes in Germany which yesterday escalated to 31,000 workers downing tools and it’s starting to impact ecommerce sellers in the UK.
Deutsche Post posties have been engaged in regular walkouts and work to rule since the 8th of June and millions of letters and, more importantly for sellers, parcels haven’t been delivered.
The issue is Deutsche Post plans to hire thousands of workers in sister companies on different terms to the collective Deutsche Post agreement deal with the German trade unions.
The strikes are to go on indefinitely with no end in sight. This of course won’t affect sellers who are using couriers to deliver packages, although it’s still worth keeping an eye on as their volumes may increase as companies switch from mail to courier. It is however likely to affect merchants who despatch parcels via Royal Mail.
We’ve not seen anything yet from marketplaces on whether they’ll be protecting sellers who receive poor feedback as a result of the postal delays. Have you been affected either with parcels not being delivered in a timely fashion or have you seen an uptick in less that satisfactory feedback from your German customers?
Edited to add: eBay have now announced protection for UK sellers
10 Responses
Thanks for the heads up. We have had a few moaning German customers. I’ll send John Cleese over to sort it all out.
Hi
We did get higher than usual INR clamis from Germany. Now its all clear..
Hopefully it wont last too much as even if will send it again it will not arrive and just waiting is not something that buyer tend to do, so what is our option here?
I’m waiting for a bunch of vinyl records from Germany and nothing comes BibleThump
Its a bugger awaiting parts for my BMW bike, i am in gods country ( australia) but however inconvenient I can wait as I understand the reasons behind the action of the workers, lets hope the corporation can fullfill the agreements they signed and meet thier obligations to thier employees.
I am in Germany awaiting a package from UK & a package from Germany, looking at the tracking information given the package from the UK is doing better than the german one. The german package has gone past its estimated delivery time (26th june) the English one has (1st july). I am waiting almost 2 weeks for English one which is expected given arrival date, the german one is 3 days late.. its is frustrating but aslong as I know theese items will defiantly get here things will be ok!?
Ebay.de has announced an unconditional amnesty for sellers who pick up defect ratings for non delivery, for the month of June.
Personally though that has not saved my German dashboard from falling in to disrepair, this is because the backlog started a long time before the industrial action officially started, and I work on 14 day lead times. Hence in May, I picked up a number of INR’s.
2 INR now from Germany. shipped mid June. Don’t ship much there, so that’s a high percentage for me.
I am picking them up too for June now. Touch and go if my global rating survives.
how long is this going to last? i wish DHL would let us know .if we are going to get our goods?