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Jody Johnston is the owner of Maryport-based home fragrance business Northern Soul Scents and claims that since mid-November, 85 parcels that were due to be delivered to customers, have been lost in transit.
Jody was first alerted to potential problems with orders in November as customers began to report that their parcels were not arriving.
As Northern Soul Scents send around 600 parcels a week, Jody says that it is normal to have issues with a small amount of deliveries. However, due to the amount of queries she was receiving from customers, she said it became clear that there was a wider issue with shipping.
After investigating, Jody believes that around 55 orders that were dropped off and scanned into a shop at Workington – for which she received initial tracking codes – were never subsequently scanned when they were picked up by delivery firm Evri and have since vanished.
Two months later, in January, Jody believes the same thing happened again, with another batch of around 35 orders disappearing.
Due to these issues, Jody has been forced to pay for new shipping labels to send the orders again, as well as creating new handmade products.
This has cost Northern Scent Souls at least £2,500, according to Jody.
“For this to happen in November was an absolute nightmare,” Jody said, speaking to the News & Star.
“Just as the customers started to report this to us it was leading into Black Friday which is our busiest period of the year. We take about 60 per cent more orders that week than any other week of the year.
“We had to send all the Black Friday orders and replace the missing 55 orders, which was stressful.
“The revenue lost is also stressful for a small business. Luckily we did well over December and we are on the bigger side for small businesses, but if this happened to a smaller business it would probably be devastating and put them out of business.
“To have it happen again over the new year, just when we are getting back into it after Christmas, is another nightmare.”
She has now made the decision to conduct all of Northern Soul Scents’ shipping through the Royal Mail.
She said: “I have got no trust in Evri now.
“Although it is an additional cost to us and it is a bit more inconvenient in terms of parcel drop offs, we will have to use Royal Mail for everything going forward now.”
An Evri spokesperson said: “We have been in touch with Jody to apologise for the delay and offer our support.
“We are helping Jody towards a solution with Shopify, the company she has sent the parcels with.
“Meanwhile we’re investigating an isolated issue and we are working on getting these parcels moving through our network.
“We recommend customers always get in touch with the company they’ve either ordered from, or booked a parcel delivery through, as they hold the information on the customer and are best placed to quickly get them support.”
