Post mortem on the courier delays caused by snow

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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by Chris Dawson

It’s been a few weeks since the snowy weather just before Christmas and all couriers are saying that they’ve caught up with the busiest time of the year and the back log caused by the weather. I’ve spoken to a number of couriers and Royal Mail to establish what went wrong and how well they coped.

Without exception the message I got back was that the delays caused by the snow were totally unavoidable. All couriers are designed for parcels to flow through their networks. In normal circumstances a parcel despatched in Plymouth for example, will be picked up, sorted in the local depot, routed to the national hub, passed on to a local delivery depot in Edinburgh and be out for delivery by the next morning.

As soon as parcels stop flowing through the delivery network it causes problems and couriers simply don’t have the facilities for storing parcels. Most couriers resorted to hiring temporary warehouses and this is where the problems really started for eBay sellers.

There has been much said on various forums that couriers operated a last in first out process. Couriers themselves (including Royal Mail) insisted that their procedures are to operate a first in first out policy. In reality most couriers were unable to even transfer parcels to the North of England and Scotland. These parcels were not only delayed but had the knock on effect of clogging up warehouses in the South.

There has been speculation that Royal Mail purposely delayed old mail, in preference to parcels posted later, in order to meet their delivery targets. However it’s worth pointing out the period from 6th December 2010 to 1st January 2011 was already excluded from their published quality of service targets.

This is the case every year for Royal Mail (exact dates will vary year to year – basically it’s the first Monday in December until the beginning of January). There would be no logic in as rushing through new mail at the expense of mail already delayed in the network, simply to reduce the total quantity of delayed mail, as delays over this period are not included in aggregated figures.

Once the weather improved doubtless all couriers processed new parcels as they arrived at the same time as working through the backlog. With the best intentions in the world, if parcels have been stored in temporary warehouse it would likely be impossible to process them sequentially. This is compounded by the fact that in many cases they were stored in multiple locations in different parts of the country wherever the courier managed to secure temporary warehouse facilities.

For future instances of poor weather on-line retailers face a difficult decision. Do you post all your sales knowing that whilst some will get through others will be delayed or do you hold back despatching items to avoid being caught in the backlog? Again if you hold back shipping items (even if you pack them) do you yourself have space in your warehouse to hold a weeks worth of packed orders if you delay despatch?

Hopefully we’ve seen the last of the poor weather for this year, but what plans will you put in place for next time your deliveries are affected by snow?

[moyas slave]

Hopefully we’ve seen the last of the poor weather for this year, but what plans will you put in place for next time your deliveries are affected by snow?
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its not that hard for royal mail so long as the roads are made safe for the HGVs.
as far as deliverys go we have always delivered in all weathers and ok pehaps not everybody can work the extra hours involved to complete dutys in the snow and ice but its only a problem if management can not manage.
increase all PT to FT where possible and fill the void with agency temps.

if say scotland is cut off then so be it but that does not mean that our DO in leeds should have mountains of undelivered mail and packets due to lack of hours and poor management.

and as for the DOs that introduced park and loop in nov/dec......... well as i have already said very poor management.