The U.K. is suffering one of its worst winters in years, with all of the country hit for the second time with arctic conditions the couriers and the postal services are struggling to get the Christmas mail delivered, affected by black ice snow drifts and freezing conditions for nearly a month with only a slight reprieve in between the whole distribution network is at a standstill.
I have recently had a customer for an item of sports memorabilia which was sent out express delivery say it took 5 working days for his memorabilia to arrive on a next day service! Recorded delivery packages are taking even longer all parcel services are hit even harder especially the door to door services, another customer of mine for a very expensive item of music memorabilia informed me only today that his item is still in transit after several days. I can only imagine that this is a similar story all over the U.K. I have several very big overseas customers who are requiring orders to be fulfilled for the Christmas rush and their items including golf memorabilia, football memorabilia and several signed football shirts has not even arrived at the airport, nor cleared customs after being in transit for 4 days!
It looks like there are going to be a lot of internet customers disappointed on Christmas day or should I say before Christmas day. I have even started doing deliveries of signed memorabilia to customers in my local area, braving the conditions to make sure they have their Christmas presents for the 25th.
I can only hope that the situation gets better along with the weather over the next few days and all the internet shoppers get their goods in time for Christmas. Well let's look on the positive side at least we will have a White Christmas if not the Christmas presents!
Wishing all of you out there a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.