Christmas gets earlier every year..

Our two delivery companies, DPD and Royal Mail have just announced revised, recommended last posting dates for Christmas:

“Due to severe disruption & back-logs with both Royal Mail and DPD courier deliveries, caused by Royal Mail strike action, we are recommending that customers requiring a pre-Christmas delivery, to order by 4pm Monday 19th December, selecting the Next Day services.”

Super-Saver cut-off is still Thursday 15th December (orders placed before 4pm) and Standard Delivery and First-Class Delivery is still by 4pm on Friday 16th December.

Royal Mail are still dealing with a backlog of deliveries, following several days of strike action in November & December, and because of their delivery service delays, many businesses have moved some, or all, of their deliveries to DPD.

This has caused DPD to suffer their own backlogs and delays in delivery services, as they try to cope with the extra demand placed on their network.

Several DPD depots have blocked dispatches for certain areas or even whole collections from businesses, attempting to catch up and get back on schedule.

Then there has been the weather, with freezing temperatures and snow fall across the UK, to further hamper delivery vehicles.

Although we at Chocolate Trading Co, plan well in advance for seasonal order volumes, including arranging extra courier collections, ‘sweeper’ vehicles making extra AM collections, as well as making sure our small team of warehouse & production members are able to get all orders packed and ready for collection by the couriers, on the day they were placed (Mon-Fri before 4pm for same day dispatch), we are still very much at the mercy of the delivery companies to do their ‘bit’.

Every year, at Christmas, we try to offer our range of chocolate gifts for delivery before Christmas as near as possible to the couriers last posting date recommendations.

There have already been several revisions this year, as either Royal Mail or DPD advised of a change in their last posting date recommendations, and now we have had to bring forward even further, our recommended last posting dates (see above).

DPD are telling us that their delivery network, depots and sorting hubs will be fully open as of Friday (16th Dec) morning.

A reminder that Royal Mail are on strike Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th December, so there will be no collections or deliveries on those days.

Finally, we’d like to thank all our customers, for their kind understanding and encouraging feedback during what continues to be a very testing time for any online retailer, regarding delivery delays. Please accept our sincerest apologies on behalf of the couriers entrusted with your delivery for any delays.

We fully appreciate the frustration and the inconvenience a later than planned delivery can cause, but your support for those taking industrial action has been overwhelmingly positive.

For our part, we will continue to pick and pack orders, making sure they are properly and correctly labelled, ready for our usual collection times throughout the day, whilst monitoring closely any updates from Royal Mail or DPD, on best procedure.