UK carriers struggling with Cyber Monday effects on volumes

Record parcel volumes in the UK are seeing a few carriers facing difficulties keeping up, with the result of last-minute changes to services available for the e-commerce industry. It appears that the UK’s adoption of America’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions in the retail sector may have prompted higher volumes than had been expected.

Yesterday saw e-commerce giant eBay extending its delivery estimates for all Royal Mail domestic shipments by a day because of “record-breaking” parcel volumes.

Yodel, one of the largest e-commerce delivery firms in the UK, has had to suspend some of its parcel collections this week as a result of “unprecedented” parcel volumes in the wake of Cyber Monday.

Hatfield-based Yodel, which works with firms like Argos, Amazon and Marks & Spencer, has used volume caps to manage its festive season operations for contracted clients, has said its deliveries are continuing as normal.

Executive chairman Dick Stead told retailers: “This is not a decision that we have taken lightly but one that we have had to take to protect service levels.”

Yodel’s co-owned parcel shop business Collect+ has temporarily suspended its 2-3 day shipping service through its website.

Hermes

Meanwhile, another large parcel carrier, Hermes, suffered a small fire on one of its conveyor systems last week, which took the facility out of action for a day.

The company, which has a particularly large slice of the fashion e-commerce delivery market, initially warned customers that parcel deliveries could be delayed up to five days, but as it worked on the problems reduced that estimate to two days. [Update (15/12/14): A spokesman for Hermes has told Post&Parcel that the company’s delays were down to 24-hours, but that now it is fully up-to-date.]

As of this week, the company confirmed: “Further to our hub fire last week we are pleased to announce that nobody was hurt, no parcels were damaged, the hub machines are now repaired and we are fully operational again.”

E-commerce payment technology firm Powa Technologies said the Black Friday/Cyber Monday retail promotions at the end of November had seen sales 50% higher than expected in some cases.

Dan Wagner, the founder and CEO of Powa, said the retail trend brought over from the United States was “moving the milestones of when the peak gift-buying season begins”, fuelled by increasing use of tablets and smartphones to shop online.

“The delivery infrastructure must now quickly catch up to address this fundamental shift in retailing, for what is the busiest time of year,” he said.