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Families have been urged to post Christmas presents early amid concern that the rise in online shopping and coronavirus restrictions keeping people apart will cause delivery chaos.
Unprecedented demand could cause issues with delivery and it means that people are “running out of time” to make sure presents are under the tree, consumer experts warned on Sunday.
The Royal Mail has recommended “that people post their cards and parcels early”.
It comes as figures from Springboard show that footfall on high streets across the UK on Saturday doubled week on week, but numbers are still down by more than a third compared to this time last year.
Coronavirus rules which mean that only three households can “bubble” over the festive period also means that more people are relying on delivery services to get cards and presents to their loved ones.
Consumer rights expert Martyn James said: “There is going to be a mad panic next week and before we know it time will have run out. People should post letters and cards sooner rather than later.
“We are also on course for an unprecedented volume of parcels being sent, partly because people have had to order many gifts online and partly because of coronavirus restrictions on seeing people over Christmas.
“People have instead had to resort to sending goods directly to family members or friends and there will be millions more parcels than usual.”
Royal Mail said the last UK posting dates are December 18 for 2nd class mail, December 21 for 1st class and December 23 for Special Delivery.
The company is calling for consumers to “Shop Early, Send Early for Christmas” to encourage people to spread the load of mail.
Although a “post early” campaign has been running for more than a century, the Royal Mail is expecting this year to “outstrip prior years’ festive peaks”, having already seen a 34 per cent year-on-year increase in parcel volumes between April and August.
Mr James said that estimated delivery times are “one of the big areas of concern” as “people panic and bang through orders without necessarily reading all the small print”.
One click ordering offered by stores like Amazon is designed to make life easier, but Mr James warned that “if you haven’t looked properly or scrawled right down to the bottom of the page then you might not realise” what the estimated delivery date is.
“Another problem is that a lot of companies might look like they are in the UK when they are not,” he said. “We are approaching and may even be at the point where if you are ordering gifts from places like America they might not arrive in time. Consumers need to look out for things like foreign currency or long delivery lead times.”
