Small businesses and charities respond to postal strikes

These strikes are an absolute travesty for small businesses. Many of us don't send enough parcels to benefit from the discounts that couriers offer. I've had to suspend posting throughout this industrial action whether that's one-off orders or my monthly subscription boxes and I'm reluctant to take any orders for the Subs Boxes for next year, which are always a popular Christmas gift as I can't risk the fresh food sitting in one of the sorting offices and not being delivered in prime condition.

The Royal Mail strikes are having a significant negative impact on my business. We have great customers but our online sales have plummeted in the past three months. Our customers know that we cannot provide our usual next-day delivery service and have therefore been shopping elsewhere, which is understandable. Going forward into 2023 we are extremely concerned about our ability to stay open if the strikes continue for any length of time.

I have hundreds of independent shops selling on my platform, The British Craft House. Many take over 50% of their annual income in the last three months of the year. Parcels remain undelivered that were posted before Black Friday. Sellers have a constant stream of emails chasing up parcels and requesting refunds. Many shops closed earlier than planned as they were anxious about parcels being held and missing, thus letting their customers down. With a lack of confidence in First and Second Class Post, many sellers upgraded, sending parcels using tracked services. Tracking is however poor, often not updated or scanned into the system for over a week after posting, causing confusion and angering customers. Not all of these businesses will survive these issues and having survived the pandemic will most likely not be trading next Christmas.

The Royal Mail strikes have impacted my business significantly. Since the end of November, the delays have gone beyond Royal Mail to all of the other couriers and now there are delays across the board with some couriers closing for orders. This is usually one of my busiest times of the year, and I had to stop guaranteed Christmas deliveries last Sunday (11th) because there are so many complaints where orders are taking weeks to arrive and these are supposed to be tracked 24hr deliveries! The only option left is to pay for overnight/special deliveries but services that are still not guaranteed, over double the cost, and are still days behind. It takes years to build a good reputation and only minutes to ruin it and these delays are making it very hard to give the right service to our customers.

The Royal Mail strikes could be catastrophic for small businesses such as mine, at a time when trade is already very difficult due to rising costs and reduced consumer spending. Many of us rely on the Christmas period as our busiest time of year and we have seen a serious drop in sales this year, with customers worrying that their orders will not arrive in time if they shop online. UPS have been excellent and are sticking to their usual 48-hour service, so we can fortunately still send out our products for Christmas, but we have seen major delays in receiving stock. In some instances, we have had to seek alternative, more costly suppliers to ensure that we can fulfil all of our Christmas orders. Small businesses need the full support of the nation in these difficult times to survive into 2023.

I work part-time for a small charity and had arranged my office days to coincide with the Royal Mail's last posting date. The strikes led them to bring that forward but I was unable to reschedule. This means that our customers might not get the books they bought from us as gifts in time for Christmas, while the uncertainty might have put others off buying from us, putting a large dent in our vital seasonal fundraising efforts.

Customers rely on my book to write down brand and marketing plans ahead of time and grow their business. The strikes have affected me directly because I need to be able to “guarantee” that small businesses will receive their 'planner' books before Christmas. Over 400 orders may be delayed. We had planned to send out books early this week, but they may be delayed from getting to our customers because of the strikes. It’s caused untold stress as we didn’t expect to be spending too much time on this and now we will have customers asking us to confirm deliveries.

The postal strikes are having a larger effect on the kinds of small local businesses we work with, who rely more on Royal Mail. They are receiving a big increase in anxious customer enquiries, asking where their Christmas shopping has got to. This has less of an effect on the likes of Amazon who has its own fleet to deliver parcels or other large e-commerce brands that have more advanced logistics.

The Royal Mail strikes are scheduled to cause maximum hurt as a union negotiation tactic, but businesses that rely on the Christmas trading period to stay solvent whilst in the doldrums at other times of the year are being crippled. I work with a number of retailers that rely on mail order sales this time of year. I am on the sharp end of the stick when it comes to handling customer complaints on social media. In the consumers' eyes, the Royal Mail strikes shouldn't have a bearing on our ability to ship them their goods, so we're fielding testy people online who can't put two and two together. It's a stressful way to end a year that's been stressful in so many other ways for small businesses.

Being a corporate gifting business that relies heavily on the Christmas period for our annual revenue we have found the Royal Mail strikes very stressful due to needing to bring all our production forward by a week to keep up with changing postal deadlines. We've sucked up higher courier charges on some orders as the knock-on effect is that supplier deliveries to us are delayed either by RM or DPD as others can't cope with the increased demand, which has again caused untold amounts of stress for us and anxiety for our customers. Being an ex-postie myself, I fully support the strikes but the severity of them has been very alarming for us as a small business and as a result we'll be considering other postage options in the new year.

The Royal Mail strikes have reduced online orders. I’ve then had the choice of crippling my profit or crippling my mental health. I’ve chosen to upgrade shipping to 1st class or tracked, at no cost to my customers, to try and avoid hundreds of “where’s my order?” messages and end the year with my sanity hopefully intact.

Companies are going to strike when it has the potential to create the biggest impact. For post, it’s Christmas and alongside all the other price increases and challenges, it’s the final nail in the coffin for small businesses. I understand that they feel this is the best time to be listened to, but it’s tough on those who support them throughout the year. I’m sure small businesses contribute hugely to the turnover and help people keep their jobs in the Royal Mail. The domino effect is that while most customers are understanding, there are a small number who are not.

Yes, it is causing me quite a lot of difficulty, with a few customers being unable to separate my service from Royal Mail. However, I fully support the right of the workers to strike. Those who caused the issues making the strikes necessary are to blame, and not those on the front line.

Homeless charity, Julian House, is concerned about the damaging impact of the strikes on its most important fundraising appeal. Although homelessness is very much a 365-day-a-year issue, public awareness is much higher during the winter months. This is why it concentrates its fundraising efforts now. This year it needs to raise £190,00 before the end of January. Despite posting letters to supporters in November, many have still not arrived, causing a massive reduction in donations. This could impact directly on the services our charity is able to provide to some of the most vulnerable members of society. There are still a lot of people who write cheques and send in credit card donations. It's a real worry.

The postal strikes have meant that we had to bring forward our last postal date by a week to last Sunday because customer feedback suggests that packages are taking over 2 weeks to arrive. We understand that strikes are designed for maximum impact and support workers fighting for a living wage, but it has played into the hands of large companies like Amazon who can offer next-day delivery through their own networks. Small businesses like ours rely on the Christmas period to make the majority of our sales and whilst we are lucky that we can offer e-vouchers in place of our gift boxes, it has hit so many small businesses that we work with unfairly.

I support the postal workers in fighting for better conditions, I honestly do. The fact that so many sectors are being forced to strike at the moment, just to get the pay and working conditions they deserve is something that urgently needs to be addressed. In the meantime, small businesses like mine are bearing the brunt of the disruption, at a time when we rely on Christmas revenue to keep our businesses going in the quieter months. I'm issuing refunds for orders that are taking 2-3 weeks to arrive, because customers are understandably tired of waiting. I'm spending so much extra admin time responding to worried customers wondering where their order has got to. I know I'm going to have a very stressful few days just before Christmas as the presents people have ordered won't have arrived in time.

For my business, the Royal Mail Strikes have been a nuisance, but as with most small business owners, I completely understand why the strikes are happening. Yesterday I received my water rates bill. I received it on the due date. Notes on the bill threatening to add on interest for late payment are not something anyone wants to see, let alone a small business at the moment that has so many battles to fight at present. The main impact has been receiving stock and posting out orders. I placed an order for some of the most popular toys in November, but they took two weeks to arrive. They would usually take two days, that's stock I couldn't sell to customers in the shop and therefore missed sales at a time when sales are needed to pay bills. I post my website sales with Evri or UPS. They are both far busier than normal.

It's been a disaster! November there were due to be 17 days of strikes and by the time the first of these was cancelled posts had already gone out alerting potential customers of these. The continuation of these in December was crippling. I make my pieces to order and as they typically take three days to complete I had to close up extra early to make sure I could get them all out with a good chance of them being delivered in time. My orders are down drastically at a time when I usually make most money. The only winners in this will be Amazon.

The cost of living crisis coupled with delivery delays has no doubt had an impact on customers' spending this Christmas which is negatively impacting small businesses. Many closed their order books early to ensure they can meet delivery deadlines. In addition, some businesses have had to reship, or arrange an alternative delivery, for items that have gone missing.
Although many small business owners do support the strikes the delays are causing negative reviews from customers which have a knock-on impact on their future business.
Problems have also been reported from those using delivery services, other than Royal Mail.
We have been encouraging people to shop local and arrange local collection to avoid needing any delivery service. This support small, independent business and supports the local economy.

I have lost count how many days Royal Mail have been on strike in arguably the busiest quarter of the year for businesses

The last three months of the year provides an influx of cash which I need, particularly this year with the uncertainty of the cost of living and my sales up to 50% lower than this time last year because of this

I have had to look at alternative delivery companies who have a very poor customer satisfaction rate in the hope that they may be able to deliver before Christmas

I am 100% in support of the Royal Mail strikes and feel that 'those at the top' could have prevented this huge disruption and supported businesses and postal staff alike