Shoppers tearing their hair out in the search for Christmas presents online amid strike-hit parcel deliveries have been urged to try a low-tech solution: their local high street.
With a quarter of annual toy sales rung up in December, the boss of The Entertainer toy chain told the Guardian it had been forced to extend its delivery window to up to seven days and drop its next-day offer due to the holdups.
“We’ve had to extend our delivery promise from three to five days out to five to seven,” said Gary Grant, The Entertainer’s executive chairman. “All the couriers are in overload because although you can still give packets and parcels to Royal Mail you can’t rely on it to deliver them.”
“We had to stop offering express delivery because we can’t guarantee it. Every day lots and lots of boxes are being delivered but not in a timely way.”
Big retail names such as Waterstones have brought forward their “last order” dates for online shoppers. The bookseller’s cut-off is now two days earlier on 19 December and its website warns the postal strike could mean a…
