Temp block on overseas mail with Royal Mail

Hoddie

BBC saying that Royal Mail has asked people and retailers not to send overseas mail while they're dealing with a cyber attack.

Jay37

I'm only checking on the mobile view of BO so don't know if there's one on the desktop version, but do we think it's a good idea to have a message on the site homepage explaining the disruption? It sounds like it could potentially be a long term issue. I have notified my international customers with open orders, but obviously I, and other UK seller's, cannot ship anything overseas until it's rectified.

Any thoughts?

Lawrence

If you are currently unable to ship outside of the UK, you may want to temporarily adjust/disable shipping methods for outside of the UK

Calibrick

Oh goodness, I am SO sorry to hear about the attack on Royal Mail! Stuff was crazy enough prior to that for ya'll! :-( My hopes that this resolves rapidly so our UK peers can start taking orders overseas again FAST!

Jay37

Thanks @Lawrence. My store's already temporarily closed for a few days, so I will adjust the shipping when I reopen.

Brick arena

@Lawrence what do we do about overdue orders in light of the Royal Mail issue. I do not want to turn of shipping to outside of uk as many people are quite happy to wait.

Two main issues are the overdue notices from Brick Owl and the collection of stripe payments if not collected
In time. What can you do to help manage the current situation?

connectabrick

i agree with brick arena we also havent turned off international but have spoken to every customer and they are happy to wait. we also have overdue order notifications. Given that it is an event outside of our control could there be some movement on this issue.

Lawrence

It's upsetting to hear that the royal mail issue is still ongoing. I have updated the code to disable the overdue warning for UK stores until the end of the month.

With stripe, you can manually capture the payment on the more actions drop down.

However, you really should be updating shipping methods to remove non-UK countries until the issue is resolved.

Brick arena

Thanks for your help @Lawrence.

Jay37

It would be interesting to know from non-UK sellers how much of this has made it into their news. It seems to have been shunted down and no longer a major story in the UK, I guess in part because your average domestic user is not really affected too much. I had dealings with US customers who were aware of the industrial action around Christmas, but how has this been covered?

I've already had one customer cancel their order, but one other is happy to wait. I've also had a shipping quote (probably because I left 'Request a Quote' enabled), but at least I can explain the situation before an order is placed and parts picked.

Calibrick

In the US, I have read about it on CNN (web) and seen it noted on Fox and CNN (24-hour TV news), if it helps. This kind of thing does not make local news telecasts typically, though.

Brick-Cat

Now able to send standard,tracked and signed for.

misbi

I believe international standard service is currently letters only

Calibrick

Do folks have a general idea of how long UK to US is taking right now by Royal Mail? Between strikes and the hack, I've advised my seller I'm willing to patient, so just wondering how long is fair to wait? I ordered on 12/28/22... until late February? Or is it not quite that bad? Just wondering what experiences are, and thanks!

Jay37

@Calibrick Not sure about transit through the UK network, but I would have thought once it's passed through the processing depot at Heathrow and on a plane that it shouldn't be too long. The strikes wouldn't have helped - I sent things to the States well before Christmas and it was middle of January before it arrived - so there would probably have been a backlog. Then the cyber incident and that was early January, so now there's some movement hopefully you shouldn't have too long to wait.

But, who knows?

infinibrix

Can I just ask other UK sellers here whether you still have international shipping disabled and whether you've also disable international Quotes?

Jay37

@infinibrix I've kept all my international shipping bands disabled for the time being. I don't offer tracking on certain parcel weights, so it's just easier to have them off. I do still have request a quote enabled and explain to any overseas customers that if they proceed with the order it may be some time before it actually ships.