What not to say to customers with a delayed parcel at Christmas.

RFW

As I send out a load more parcels at Christmas it's inevitable to get some delays. A couple of recent ones were someone who'd waited over three weeks and no tracking was showing ("did you send it") to another who said my parcel was due to arrive today but isn't here yet can you sort it please (message was received at noon on delivery day). They're all tracked in some form so, if it's super late, I'll check the details and see what I can do to help, send reassurance and either refund or send another item on the same or next day. If it's not that late I'll say I'll keep my eye on the tracking, see if I can find any more information and try and make sure it arrives as soon as possible. I try and be helpful and reassuring.
As I'm mostly stuck indoors sending parcels out I do my own shopping online, leading to my own delays. So I have a parcel that was said to have been sent to me ten days ago, late delivery estimate was Dec 12th. It's not tracked, no idea why not as it was about £30. Anyway the seller response was "It should be there any day mate". Ah, that's mightily reassuring, any day before or after Christmas?

If anyone is interested I do a mix of RM 24 and 48s. 24s seem to be 1-3 days, with a few outliers. 48s have been 2-14 days and probably averaging about 5 or 6. That's why I gave this late parcel a few more days than the late estimate, although I haven't even had confirmation that it's been sent by Royal Mail.

goodfella66

Royal Mail need to change the names of Royal Mail 24 & 48. It gives unrealistic expectations to buyers. Maybe Royal Mail Premium+ & Premium may be better?

Murphybear

RFW said:

As I send out a load more parcels at Christmas it's inevitable to get some delays. A couple of recent ones were someone who'd waited over three weeks and no tracking was showing ("did you send it") to another who said my parcel was due to arrive today but isn't here yet can you sort it please (message was received at noon on delivery day). They're all tracked in some form so, if it's super late, I'll check the details and see what I can do to help, send reassurance and either refund or send another item on the same or next day. If it's not that late I'll say I'll keep my eye on the tracking, see if I can find any more information and try and make sure it arrives as soon as possible. I try and be helpful and reassuring.
As I'm mostly stuck indoors sending parcels out I do my own shopping online, leading to my own delays. So I have a parcel that was said to have been sent to me ten days ago, late delivery estimate was Dec 12th. It's not tracked, no idea why not as it was about £30. Anyway the seller response was "It should be there any day mate". Ah, that's mightily reassuring, any day before or after Christmas?

If anyone is interested I do a mix of RM 24 and 48s. 24s seem to be 1-3 days, with a few outliers. 48s have been 2-14 days and probably averaging about 5 or 6. That's why I gave this late parcel a few more days than the late estimate, although I haven't even had confirmation that it's been sent by Royal Mail.

Unfortunately sellers can say what they like, they don’t actually do the deliveries . I’ve bought loads of things from eBay over the last couple of months and the deliveries have been hit and miss.  The best have been Royal Mail (by a long way) and Evri have been either very good or very bad.  The worst was being emailed by Evri “your parcels have been delivered”.  They hadn’t.  I was at home and no one rang the very large doorbell.  The 2 parcels turned a week later.  

For the first time ever I’ve had 2 parcels missing.  

December is, obviously, the busiest time of the year for deliveries. 

MattMattMattUK

I send quite a lot of shipments with Royal Mail, over the last year I have found that 1st Class is on average a five day service. Special Delivery have all bar one go there next day. For the Tracked 24 and Tracked 48 services I would say that 98% of 24 have go there next day and 95% of 48 have got there within two days. Of the 54 Tracked 24 shipments I dispatched last Thursday all but three were delivered the next day, two were carded and one was delayed a day due for unknown reasons. Couriers have been far less reliable over the year, regardless of the courier I would say not a single one (UPS, DPD, TNT, ParcelForce or Evri) has a delivery success rate greater than 95% and when there are delays sometimes they can be significant. I do notice an increase in delays after Black Friday and then in the week before Christmas, but generally service is inconsistent throughout the year. 

The only other pattern of note that I have seen is that the failure rate for residential addresses is more than twice the failure rate for business addresses. The slight flip side is that at home, an address relatively close to the sorting office, I only get post once a week at most unless it is Tracked 24/48 or Special Delivery, normal mail will turn up once a week, sometimes once a fortnight unless there is a tracked/special to force the postman to come on a specific day. 

RFW

MattMattMattUK said:

For the Tracked 24 and Tracked 48 services I would say that 98% of 24 have go there next day and 95% of 48 have got there within two days.

I use Tracked 24 via Amazon and they show the official tracked stats, it's been around 93-95% for the last couple of weeks. Amazon want it to be 98%+.
I had to delay a few parcels being sent out by a day. They were meant to be 48s so I upgraded them to 24s. I can guarantee that they'll arrive well before any 48s sent a day earlier.

steviebabes

The main problem at the moment seems to be Yodel. I had a parcel yesterday that was sent on the 30th November. Royal Mail, Evri and DPD have been pretty good recently.

RFW

Murphybear said:

Unfortunately sellers can say what they like, they don’t actually do the deliveries .

I did ask the one who hadn't received the parcel yet, on the day it was being delivered, what they wanted me to do. Short of going to their address and searching for any posties and then demanding to look in their postbags, I couldn't think of anything.

soolin

My post is all over the place, I really only use RM48 or standard parcel for 2nd class, and 2nd class for LLs, and stuff sent on the same day can take anything between 1 and 8 days to arrive. A close family member though mentioned in a recent chat that they get a letter delivery (including large letters) twice a week and a parcel delivery no letters)  3 days a week, the local sorting office has apologised and just said staffing levels are too low to maintain a regular service to some outlying areas. They are not incidentally in a remote area, just a town of several hundred thousand people. 

My holiday settings have just gone on today as I don't think i want the stress of all those messages from people buying later this week or even Monday asking why the item they wanted for Christmas hasn't arrived. 

Just looking at various Vinted groups- post there with all the various permutations of postage allowed seems to be grinding to a halt. Yet there is still someone this morning asking sellers to let them know what Christmas gifts they have for sale and to confirm they can be sent Friday as they get their money in on Friday and can't shop until then. 

JadedAngel88

steviebabes said:

The main problem at the moment seems to be Yodel. I had a parcel yesterday that was sent on the 30th November. Royal Mail, Evri and DPD have been pretty good recently.

Yes, me to. Sent via Yodel on 28th November and it got to Waltham depot and hasn't moved since. Had no issues with royal mail or Evri. 

This is something I sold on vinted and the buyer has to wait till 1st January before vinted say it's lost.I feel sorry for the buyer but I can't do anything or refund them. Just weird that Yodel is affected but other stuff I've sent since has been fine.

molerat

A lot of the RM problems are down to local level, parcels seem to zip through the system until they reach the local DO.  I posted elsewhere about my recent experience of sending 4 parcels on a Thursday lunchtime with 2 arriving Sat and another just 10 miles away and a different DO, which is pretty much permanently on the delays list, arriving Tuesday.  The 48 arrived at the local MC on Friday evening quoting Sat delivery but was held up, I presume by the storm, arriving at the DO very early Mon morning, again stating ready for delivery, and sat there till Tues.

The DO naughty list is getting bigger daily ! https://www.royalmail.com/service-update

TripleH

Last couple of years post has been a nightmare at our end.

We had 'concrete issues at our sorting office which had a knock on effect to couriers and it was easier to give up on expecting post from about the 2nd week of December.