Queues and complaints as online orders flood mail service

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Ros Taylor and agencies
Monday December 24, 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/post/story/0, ... tworkfront

The boom in online shopping has left many Britons queueing outside postal depots this morning as they try to pick up Christmas parcels they ordered over the internet.

Shoppers are expected to have spent almost £14bn online on Christmas shopping this year, 43% more than in 2006.

Reports yesterday claimed that some postal workers were putting a "Sorry, you were out" card straight through letterboxes rather than ringing the doorbell and attempting to deliver a parcel.

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Royal Mail, which is delivering more than 2bn letters and packages this Christmas season, denied the charge. "That is something that is not our standard practice at all - if there's isolated incidents here, it's unacceptable," a spokesman for the company said.

"We want to hand over the parcel. If someone's not there we leave a card. These claims have no credibility at all, the vast amount have been safely delivered."

Royal Mail has recently offered customers the chance to arrange redelivery for a specific date via the web. However, it admits parcels can arrive at any time between 7am and 6pm, and suggests customers go to a delivery office if they want their parcel quickly.

Complaints about the limited opening times at postal depots - many are only open during office hours and until noon on Saturdays - have increased as more and more shoppers have turned to the internet to buy their Christmas presents.

Post Office customers now spend an average of almost five minutes queueing at any time of the year - 42 seconds more than in 2006. Londoners and people living in the south-east waited the longest, and those in Northern Ireland the least. A survey by Postwatch, the industry watchdog, found that on average only six in ten counters were open.

Complaints about late or missing online shopping deliveries in the run-up to Christmas have risen by 29% year-on-year. But the government agency Consumer Direct said the rise was entirely due to the popularity of online shopping.

"Unfortunately the problem is that legally, unless the consumer has stated they needed their deliver for Christmas, the trader is allowed 30 days to deliver," a spokeswoman said. "A lot of it could be naivety on the consumer's part. What we're trying to do is steer consumers away from panic buying - if the goods are delivered after Christmas we don't feel there's necessarily anything to panic about."

A spokesman for the online retailer Amazon.co.uk said the company's delivery success rate had exceeded 99% this year. "It's been a massive Christmas for us and we've been filling demand for orders for 750,000 a day at peak. If anyone's left disappointed at Christmas, it's a very small percentage."

[Lounge Lizard]

I blame it all on us delivering everything an hour later, many residents now having gone out for the day by the time that we call.

[wakkono]

i blame it on leighton and co all the penny pinching has really hit home this xmas
its been the worst xmas ever i can remember and ive done 17 of em

[greynut]

Its many factors, all mentioned above.

At our office we are now working 06.15-14.15. Our 1 1/4 SA was put at the front of our delivery times over the pressure. But lo and behold the big lorry drivers were working normal hours. We were paid 1 1/4 hours SA to play cards. NOthing was turing up till about7 .00am. Then on Saturday, when we given 2 extra hours to deliver the masses of packets we had, but the callers office closed at 1.00pm. So we had to finish at 12.30 to bring back everything and make sure our 739 packets were in the callers office. BUT, we could not put on a time when we would be back because, thats right, the callers office was going to be shut anyway. SO anybody that was given a 739 on Saturday was stuffed.

Unbelievable mis-management.

[dubdaz]

Its many factors, all mentioned above.

At our office we are now working 06.15-14.15. Our 1 1/4 SA was put at the front of our delivery times over the pressure. But lo and behold the big lorry drivers were working normal hours. We were paid 1 1/4 hours SA to play cards. NOthing was turing up till about7 .00am. Then on Saturday, when we given 2 extra hours to deliver the masses of packets we had, but the callers office closed at 1.00pm. So we had to finish at 12.30 to bring back everything and make sure our 739 packets were in the callers office. BUT, we could not put on a time when we would be back because, thats right, the callers office was going to be shut anyway. SO anybody that was given a 739 on Saturday was stuffed.

Unbelievable mis-management.

Totally believable mis-management I would have said

[POSTMAN]

Due to the way our shuttles were arriving before the xmas pressure we couldn't do any packets until later in the afternoon instead of the morning.
So more 739's than normal,this is the way it is now so the customers best get used to it!