Yodel, whose customers include eBay, Gousto and New Look, has blamed rivals for poaching contractually committed HGV drivers during the year's busiest trading period, Sky News understands.
One of Britain's biggest parcel carriers has been hit by a capacity crisis at the start of the crunch festive trading period, forcing it to urge key customers to divert business to rival delivery firms.
Sky News has learnt that Yodel, which was due to recruit thousands of seasonal workers to help it deal with a surge in volumes from Black Friday until Christmas, has told clients including New Look, Gousto and eBay that it has been affected by a series of operational challenges.
In a memo sent to customers this week, which has been seen by Sky News, Yodel said it had seen "significant delays in processing [parcels] therefore impacting the availability of empty trailer and our planned driver schedules".
"Unfortunately, this combined with a number of our peak HGV drivers not arriving for their agreed time slot has impacted our ability to provide the number of agreed collections.
"Upon investigation, we uncovered that this was due to significant financial incentives being offered elsewhere.
"We are working closely with these drivers as they had made a commitment to Yodel for the peak period."