Posted on 6th Mar 2023 @ 6:46:59 PM

Shipping Service Changes - Now Live

We have now transitioned to using Tracked 48 and Tracked 24 as our default/economy UK shipping service and these are now available. As part of this transition prices on "free shipping" products (particularly Printer Pads) will see a cost drop of at least 2 GBP.

International customers will find the same products with heavily discounted shipping but we will be unable to offer "free shipping" for all international customers, due to the wide variation in shipping costs. Tracked post will become the default however to ensure faster delivery and provide better information on where packages are.

Overall status:

• Shipping as normal
  
• Normal support options are now available although we're dealing with a backlog of voicemail messages plus emails that have come in over the last 24 hours.
• Shipping is affected by some strike delays in some countries but overall we're shipping as normal now.

Country Specific Information: (Issues affecting delivery times)

•  Norway: Tracking may be incomplete due to IT issues at Nord Post.
  
  
•  Canada: Strike action is affecting all Spring/postal shipping service. We CANNOT ship any items via Spring until the strike action ends.
  
  
•  Netherlands: Recommend Spring (Priority Parcel [T]) for faster shipping.
  
  
•  Ukraine: Services to eastern and southern parts of Ukraine remain patchy. Please contact us BEFORE ordering so we can check for issues.
  
  
•  Russia/Belarus: Service to these territories have been suspended indefinitely.
  
  
•  Ireland: Normal service.

•  Italy: Spring Parcel [TS] Service is recommended. Some delays due to capacity issues in the Poste Italiane network 
  
  
•  USA: California deliveries are affected by wildfires 
  
  
•  New Zealand: Spring Priority services have improved delivery times to approximately 10-15 working days.
  
  
•  Japan: Normal service
  
  
•  France: Olympics is causing some delays for deliveries to Paris
  
  
•  Australia: Normal service
  
  
•  Portugal: Normal service
  
  
•  Slovakia: Normal service
  
  
•  Greece: Normal service
  
  

European (EU/EEA Orders)  (Not including the UK)

• See above for country specific delays.
• Please read our detailed information on EU/EEA orders available here
• We continue to incur surcharges with all EU shipping services. We're actively looking at alternatives for both IOSS handling and shipping.
• Spring GDS continues to improve their service breadth and speed of delivery and we're switching all our International post/mail options to their services.

International (Non-EU Orders)

• Spring GDS continues to improve their service breadth and speed of delivery and we're switching all our International post/mail options to their services.
• Royal Mail has become an overblown, poor quality service for International orders with very little responsibility or communication from account managers, etc... 
• Asendia has been suspended following a number of issues with processing times and unforced errors.

UK Orders

• Royal Mail services since mid September (2023) have been poor with numerous delays and increased losses. Please use another service if your order is time critical. (more info).
• All other UK courier services are currently delivering reasonably normally but we seeing some delays due to the parcel volumes leading up to Christmas.

Final Comments.

• We are now managing to ship orders almost every day with some rare exceptions.
• Spring orders are being shipped in batches every 1-2 days for efficiency purposes.
• Covid-19 appears to have dwindled into the background noise and while it is occassionally mentioned as a cause/excuse for delays it seems "normality" has returned to a degree.

Shipping Service Updates

You can find updates to shipping service availability, performance, etc... on this thread

Earlier Updates:

• Normal Service Resumes
  Thank-you for everyone who has been waiting patiently for our team to return to work. We are now clearing the backlog of orders, support queries and voicemails that were left over the Christmas period. We trust your start to the new year has been a positive one and we look forward to helping you with your printer needs now and in the future.

• Untracked/Economy Shipping Options Disabled
  Due to the usual sales and pre/post-Christmas chaos we are continuing to disable Economy/Untracked shipping options on the store and have adjusted pricing on "free shipping" products to allow for the cost difference. This helps us ensure that the bulk of our orders are delivered successfully and in a timely manner. These changes will be reverted when things settle down in the New Year (still pending review).
  Royal Mail services continue to experience serious delays and, to our intense frustration, have proven increasingly unreliable in many areas of the UK. 

• Christmas & New Year 2023/24 Closure & Dispatch Dates
  Please click here to view our holiday dates affecting order shipping and support over the Christmas & New Year period.

  
  
• Easter 2023: Last orders & Holiday closure
  Orders placed before 12 noon GMT+1 will be shipped Thursday 6th April. We'll be closed from 1pm (Thurs 6th April) until end of Mon 10th April due to the Good Friday and Easter Monday bank holidays.
  Normal service will resume Tuesday 11th April.

• 9th March 2023
  Heavy snow in the UK caused significant delays. Dispatch on ALL orders from Thursday 9th to weekend were suspended until Monday 13th March 2023.

See our earlier thread:

https://www.octoink.co.uk/news/531/