The Issues
We use Royal Mail primarily to deliver our envelopes, so we use their system of delivery offices, postboxes, and postage labels. With the cheapest and most environmentally way of delivery being through Second-Class post, we choose this for our non-tracked deliveries, and happy they can arrive with a postie through the letterbox.
However, we are aware of strike action across the Royal Mail network which is making Second-Class postal deliveries much slower than usual. This is frustrating to us as much as it is to our customers, as we want our orders to arrive in a timely manner, safe and sound. Knowing they haven’t arrived by the estimated time concerns us something has happened to the order.
Alternatives
While there are many parcel alternatives to Evri, sending simple packages through the letterbox at a competitive price to Royal Mail seems non-existent. The only way we would be able to improve the service would be to track every order to keep us and the customer informed on their delivery status, but as sending an envelope via Second-Class is only £1.05, compared to £2.70 for the cheapest tracking, we would have to pass that cost onto the customer. Furthermore, sending via Tracked 48 only gives us a small two hour window in the morning to send envelopes out, and we must travel further to get to the delivery office, as well as print out and stick on a label.
We are happy to provide the option of Tracked 48 for customers who want their envelopes to be tracked, but feel this may not be necessary as standard for all customers, and we can see many of our competitors are not selling their pressed flowers/foliage with tracking as default either, with some not even offering it as an option at all.
The Solution?
We support the workers at the Royal Mail in their efforts to improve their situation, and understand striking is a last resort they have had to come to. We are not frustrated with them during this time, and instead hope those in charge of Royal Mail will come to an agreement as soon a possible. In the meantime, what we can do as sellers on Etsy is continue to provide the option of Tracked 48 for customers with enveloped orders, and keep communication open with our customers.
We were recently informed by a customer that their order sent through Second-Class had not arrived, despite waiting over a week. We immediately went to Royal Mail to investigate and saw they do not consider it as lost until ten business/working days had past. The best we can do is check daily and keep the customer informed of when Royal Mail officially considers their order as lost, and then we can move onto the next steps of trying to work out a solution for the customer. Because, while we are all mindful of the slower Royal Mail service due to strike disruption, there will always be a point where we must consider the possibility that the order will not reach the customer, and at that stage, we will make sure to do what we can to make the situation right.