Shipping Update for International Customers
Update 24th February 2023: We are now sending packages to all international destinations again.
We have always used the UK post office for sending untracked and tracked parcels. They ship using Royal Mail for UK and international packages with Parcelforce courier services at additional cost for urgent international deliveries.
On 11 January 2023, Royal Mail reported experiencing “severe service disruption” following a cyber incident.
Royal Mail posted, “We have asked customers temporarily to stop submitting any export items into the network while we work hard to resolve the issue.”
We immediately disabled accepting international orders and refunded orders waiting to be dispatched and added a message to our website to notify our customers of the issues.
We could continue to use Parcelforce for parcel delivery, but the cost of using the Parcelforce courier is generally over 10 times more expensive than untracked Royal Mail airmail parcel services.
Royal Mail posted daily updates in the following weeks to say they were working on the issues.
Tracked Only Delivery Available
At the start of February 2023, Royal Mail announced that they could now start accepting international parcels but only using a tracked service and the postage is booked online on their website. They will collect from us between 7 am and 9 am each morning.
The tracked service prices are higher than standard shipping, and we had to update our delivery options to cover the additional costs and remove the free delivery for orders over £35.00.
Untracked Delivery Available
On 9 February 2023, Royal Mail announced that they could now start accepting non-tracked international parcels but only when booked on their website and collected between 7 am and 9 am each morning from our office.
Due to the ongoing posting restrictions, we can only send international parcels the following morning after the order was placed rather than up to 10 am each morning when we take the parcels to the post office to be processed and sent.
Below is the latest update from the Royal Mail service status page on 11 February 23
“We continue to make progress in exporting a growing number of mail items to all international destinations. As a result of this progress,?we have now announced the restoration of the majority of our International export services via online channels.??
From 19.00 Thursday 09 February we will be reinstating further International Standard (Untracked) services for business contract users (in addition to those reinstated on Friday 03 February). Business contract customers are likely to see additional services available in their shipping solution following this change.
Summary of International services which have been reinstated to all destinations:
- International Tracked, International Tracked & Signed and International Signed?for purchase online/through shipping solutions
- For Consumer and On Account customers all international untracked?(Priority, Standard, Economy) services are now available for purchase online
- For Business Contract customers we have reinstated International Untracked personal correspondence letter services and?most non-personal correspondence International Standard (untracked) services through our online shipping solutions.?
At this time, we are unable to process new Royal Mail parcels purchased through Post Office branches. Customers can still access the following export services though Post Office branches:
- Sending export parcels through Parcelforce Worldwide
- Dropping off items they have labelled online
- Purchasing our International standard and International economy letter and large letter format service for items of personal correspondence (goods, gifts etc. cannot be sent via the Post Office at this time)
- Purchasing our International Tracked and Signed, International Tracked and International Signed letter and large letter format services for items of personal correspondence (goods, gifts etc. cannot be sent via the Post Office at this time)
We are working hard to resume more services through Post Office branches and will provide further updates on these services as soon as possible.
Delivery of International items may take slightly longer than usual and customers using Tracked services may notice different tracking information as items leave the UK.?
Import operations continue to perform a full service with some minor delays. Domestic services are unaffected.
We would like to sincerely apologise to impacted customers for the disruption this incident is causing.?Our teams are continuing to work around the clock to reinstate remaining export services as quickly as we can."