Tag: Domestic

Online shopping complaints rise (UK)

Posted by | Dec 24, 2007 | |

Complaints about the late arrival of online deliveries have risen by a third in the run-up to Christmas, according to a government advice service.

Consumer Direct says it has received 3,000 complaints in six weeks.

Royal Mail says the “vast bulk” of Christmas post will arrive on time and online retailer Amazon says its delivery success rate is above 99 pct.

Meanwhile, retailers reported Saturday was their busiest day of the year with sales exceeding expectations for many.

The UK’s 27 million online shoppers are expected to have spent GBP 15bn online in the run-up to Christmas Day – up 60 pct on last year, according to Interactive Media and Retail Group (IMRG), the industry body for the electronic retail community.

Online retailers use a variety of courier companies to make deliveries to customers, as well as Royal Mail.

Amazon says it has been dispatching 750,000 parcels a day in the run-up to Christmas.

Royal Mail has predicted that it will deliver a record 120 million items ordered over the internet this festive season – double the number handled three years ago.

In total, it expects to deliver some two billion items of Christmas post.

Royal Mail’s workforce has been boosted by an extra 20,000 members of staff in the four week run-up to Christmas, with more than 2,000 staff taken off non-operational duties to help with deliveries.

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Royal Mail loses 2 million presents

Posted by | Dec 23, 2007 | |

Royal Mail faces an angry consumer backlash this weekend over more than 2 million parcels and letters lost or delayed in the Christmas post.

Customers across the country are in danger of being left without their presents as postal workers are overwhelmed by the GBP 10 billion boom in online shopping. The backlog has allegedly been compounded by postal workers deliberately failing to deliver presents to save time on their rounds.

About 1.2m letters and parcels are already estimated to have been lost in the Christmas post. Hundreds of thousands of other items are delayed or awaiting collection at depots where queues of up to two hours have formed.

Postwatch, the independent watchdog, last week wrote to Adam Crozier, chief executive of Royal Mail, to demand that the recorded mail service be improved or scrapped, because so many customers who had paid extra for recorded mail complained that postal workers were routinely failing to get a signature on delivery.

The chaos managed to disrupt the last weekend before Christmas for thousands as they were forced to queue up to collect undelivered packages.

Royal Mail will handle about 120m parcels this Christmas, more than a 20 pct increase on last year. It says the vast majority will be delivered, but admits that it is recorded as a successful delivery even if a “you were out” card is dropped through the door.

Postwatch said Royal Mail’s most recently available figures indicated that it lost about 1m items of mail a month. Royal Mail said it was no longer publishing figures on the amount of mail it lost because the information was commercially confidential.

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Japan Post Reports 442 B. Yen in Net Loss in April-September

Posted by | Dec 23, 2007 | |

Japan Post Holdings Co. said Wednesday its predecessor Japan Post incurred a net loss of 442 billion yen in April-September, compared with a net profit of 237.7 billion yen a year before.

A special loss of 1,419.5 billion yen, stemming from a change in accounting methods to report pension costs, weighed down on the bottom line.

But the net loss was far smaller than the company’s estimate of 852.7 billion yen thanks to robust earnings at “Yucho” postal savings and “Kampo” postal insurance operations.

Thanks to increases in investment returns, net profit at the Yucho division grew 20.5 pct to 372.6 billion yen, and that at the Kampo division increased 35.6 pct to 661.8 billion yen.

The mail service division suffered a net loss of 814.6 billion yen, against a year-before loss of 71.4 billion yen.

Recurring profit tripled to 1,207.8 billion yen.

Japan Post Holdings, which is wholly owned by the government, started operating on Oct. 1, the launch of the 10-year privatization process of Japan’s 136-year-old state-controlled postal service system.

The holding company controls four units–Japan Post Bank, Japan Post Insurance Co., Japan Post Service Co., which took over postal services, and Japan Post Network Co., which is in charge of operating Japan Post’s office network

1 USD = 112.059 JPY

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24-hour general strike cripples Belgium

Posted by | Dec 22, 2007 | |

Most of Belgium was bought to a virtual standstill on Friday as a 24 hour general strike affected transport, schools and government services.

The BBC reports the industrial action, the first general strike in Belgium since 1993, forced the cancellation of trains, including international services such as Eurostar.
The protest was called by Belgium’s Socialist FGTB/ABVV union in protest at government plans to stop workers retiring early with full benefits.

Postal workers at sorting offices walked out on Thursday evening and airport authorities warned of possible disruption to flights.

There were also pickets and blockades at factories and ports. Antwerp, one of Europe’s largest ports, was shut for business as dockers refused to work.

Talks between the government and the unions are expected to continue over the weekend.

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Post Stamps out E-Cards for Most This Christmas, says Greetz

Posted by | Dec 21, 2007 | |

New research has found that 9 in 10 British people send Christmas cards and of those, 62pct still sends them by post. Furthermore, the research commissioned by new online postal greeting card service Greetz shows that over three quarters of people (77pct) actually prefers to receive real cards sent in the post.

In addition, the average person is likely to send around 37 Christmas cards a year, equating to an approximate annual spend of GBP 18.58,(1) excluding postage stamps. Greetz calculates that, with a UK average life expectancy of 79, Christmas cards alone will cost Adult Britons an average of GBP 1,133 each in their lifetime.

Interestingly, there was a disparity in the results according to the age of the respondent. For example, the over 55s were more than twice as likely to send Christmas cards of a religious nature than the 18-24 year olds. Amongst the younger group, a massive 82pct said that they usually buy modern Christmas cards depicting the likes of Father Christmas and reindeers rather than religious images.

The older age group is also the most likely group to send over 100 cards and to spend over GBP 100 on buying Christmas cards. Geographically, the Scots are the biggest British senders and spenders with 8pct responding that they would usually buy over 100 cards for the festive season.

The most popular time to send cards was about two weeks before Christmas (67pct) but as many as 13pct admitted that they leave it to the last week before Christmas or right up until Christmas Eve – before posting their cards. Again, there was a difference between the ages with the younger age groups most likely to leave it to the last minute.

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