Week 5: How the carrier services have been impacted
Yesterday, the UK Government announced that there would be another three weeks of lockdown before they potentially start easing the nation back outside. That means for fashion retailers, their high-street stores will remain closed and their warehouses will continue to operate with social distancing measures in place until the start of May at least.
Next, Quiz, Fenwick and River Island were all able to start taking online orders on selected lines again this week, however, many retailers including Paul Smith and Net-a-Porter are yet to reopen their UK online stores.
Whilst Spain and Italy have begun to ease their lockdown measures, business is far from back to normal for the majority of nations across the world. With post office closures, access to certain regions restricted, flight cancellations, reduced workforces and social distancing in operation, plenty of obstacles remain for carrier services.
Here’s a quick roundup on new measures and performances on retail’s logistics network
Deutsche Post – Several destinations, including China, Hong Kong, Macao and Saudi Arabia have now reopened and have been reactivated on their portal, although 116 countries remain suspended.
DPD – Many areas in the Republic of Ireland are experiencing service delays due to the significant increase in parcel volume – generally these delays do not extend beyond an additional 24 hours outside of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Louth & Meath. Most international delays are caused by increased border checks, other than that most services are operating as normal.
Janio Asia – Janio has increased consolidation & introduced an emergency surcharge (although Janio is absorbing 50% of the cost itself) amidst mass flight cancellations.
Poste Italiane – From next Monday 20th April, shipments of the entire Posta Target range will resume regularly.
Hermes – Still operating well across the UK with their services experiencing minor delays and even suspensions to some areas internationally with European countries being affected the most.
Royal Mail – Most major export routes remain open and we continue to accept and process mail. Specifically, Royal Mail’s international services to the USA remain operational.
UPS – Currently operating Monday through Friday and are operating with minimal disruption. As previously mentioned they continue to suspend their Money Back guarantee and a number of zip codes across Italy, Austria, France, Portugal and Belgium are suspended.
Are returns experts are on hand if you require any specific carrier updates and we will be hosting our second in the series COVID-19 Update webinar, covering all the news in the world of eCommerce logistics in more depth and analysis.
If you are interested in attending the webinar, email luke.toudup@zigzag.global for information on Wednesday 29th April’s webinar taking place at 3pm BST.