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

Overall status:

Country Specific Information: (Issues affecting delivery times)

•  Norway: Some areas are experiencing delays due to severe weather (postal areas 7000-9999) Expected to add 5-7 days to delivery times.
  
  
•  Canada: A new DDP service is now available for faster shipping with all import duty/taxes pre-paid as part of an OctoInkjet order.
  
  
•  Netherlands: Recommend Spring (Priority Parcel [T]) for faster shipping. Economy shipping has returned to normal.
  
  
•  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: The Spring tracked parcel service has proven far more effective at faster delivery (approximately 5-6 working days)

•  Italy: Spring Parcel [TS] Service is recommended.
  
  
•  USA: Processing time to the US depends largely on customs processing speeds.
  
  
•  New Zealand: Spring Priority services have improved delivery times to approximately 10-15 working days.
  
  
•  Japan: Normal service
  
  
•  France: Normal service.
  
  
•  Australia: Recommend Spring Parcel for fastest service without the high expense of DHL Express/Fedex. Delivery timeframe approx 7-14 working days
  
  
•  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 normally although we expect 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:

• 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/