Further Royal Mail Strikes Inbound – Shipping Advice

Royal Mail have announced that they will be taking further Strike action around Black Friday and through into December. No parcels will be collected, sorted, or delivered during the Strikes – which means we cannot offer a same-day despatch policy on those dates. The dates so far confirmed are:

• THURSDAY 24TH NOVEMBER
• FRIDAY 25TH NOVEMBER
• WEDNESDAY 30TH NOVEMBER
• THURSDAY 1ST DECEMBER
• FRIDAY 9TH DECEMBER
• WEDNESDAY 14TH DECEMBER

Orders due for despatch on the above dates will instead be despatched on the next working day*.

Much like earlier Strike action, there are likely to be delays on the lead-up to, during and in the days following the Strikes. These delays are beyond our control.

We strongly advise ordering in advance if possible, and we also advise using Tracked24 to help minimise delays with your delivery once it has been despatched. If you require an order more urgently – the only shipping service that provides a guaranteed delivery timeframe is the Guaranteed Next Working Day service. This is a paid upgrade.

We understand that most of you will have been waiting to take advantage of our Black Friday week deals and so ordering advance may not be possible. In this case, as many of you will know – our Black Friday deals are always worth waiting for.

Strike impact on delivery times

There will be backlogs for Royal Mail to clear following the Strikes, but they will be prioritising parcels sent via the Guaranteed Next Day & Tracked24 services. We strongly recommend using these services if you require an order urgently.

• Those using the Royal Mail 1st Class option (FREE for UK orders under £25) are more likely to experience delays. Per our shipping policy, please allow up to 10 working days from despatch.
  If you are not prepared to wait this long you must use one of the Tracked services instead.
• All UK orders under £25 which have been placed since Tuesday 29th November, have been given a FREE upgrade to Royal Mail Tracked48. Whilst this service does not guarantee delivery within 2 working days – it is a fully-tracked service allowing you to follow your parcels progress through the delivery network, and it also allows you to rearrange delivery to a different day if you are not going to be home.
• Those using Royal Mail Tracked48 should only see a 1-4 working day delay. This service costs just £1.50 and will at least allow you to monitor your parcels progress through the delivery network – and also see an estimated delivery date & time.
• Those using Royal Mail Tracked24 should only see minimal delays, since this is one of the services being prioritised by the carrier. Tracked24 costs just £2.95 (or FREE when you spend over £25). Unless there is extreme urgency required with your order, this is the service that we recommend you use.
• Those paying for a Guaranteed Next Day delivery upgrade: this service is Guaranteed to be delivered on the next working day from despatch. Please note that Strike days are not considered as working days. This is the only service that offers any guarantee over a delivery date.
• International shipments may experience a 1-2 delay.

Nobody likes delays. We’re online shoppers too, and so for many years we’ve worked tirelessly to ensure all orders are despatched on a ‘same-day’ basis so that our customers receive their goods as quickly as possible. This has been a core part of our business model since day one.

We can only apologise for the disruption caused by our carrier and thank you for your continued patience.

What are we doing to address this?

Easy said is ‘just use a different carrier’ – but implementing this is not quite so straight-forward. Our same-day despatch policy requires a late collection time which is difficult to obtain from other carriers, especially at such short notice.

There’s also no other carrier that offers a ‘large letter’ service, meaning our normal ‘large letter’ mail would need to be shipped as a ‘parcel’. Due to this the costs would rise considerably, and we would have to pass those increases on to our customers. This is something we’ve been trying to avoid.

Royal Mail Strikes seem likely as we head into our busiest period of the year. And with this we are keeping our options open by continuing talks with other shipping companies to try and piece together a contingency plan moving forward. Further details will be announced in due course.

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*Black Seed Friday Week (25th Nov – 2nd Dec) – Same Day Despatch is likely to be affected

As always, Black Seed Friday Week is our busiest time of the year and regardless of Royal Mail Strikes causing delays with collections & deliveries, there may additionally be a 1-2 day delay with your order being despatched if you are purchasing between Fri 25th November – Fri 2nd December.

We will be doing all that we can to ensure orders are despatched as quickly as possible, but due to the circa 600% increase in orders during this period, some may not see the same-day despatch that you are so used to.

We’d like to think our Black Seed Friday Week deals will more than make up for any delays that you may experience.

Additionally, we will be upgrading all UK orders over £14.99 to Tracked48 (a fully-tracked service).
Additionally, all UK orders under £25 are being upgraded to Tracked48 FREE of charge.
Any UK orders over £25 will of course still be eligible for FREE Tracked24.

Thank you for your patience & understanding.