Christmas cards more punctual despite increase in overall package delays

Packaged deliverers had more difficulty delivering their packages on time this festive season, percentage wise at least. The number of late packages rose from 1.8 percent in December 2019 to 3.3 percent in the past Christmas season, according to market research group Q&A, NOS reports.

Holiday cards appeared to be exempt from this trend. Christmas cards were actually more likely to arrive on time this year: While in 2019 one out of four Christmas cards arrived after the holiday passed, that number sunk to one out of five in 2020.

With the pandemic causing a surge in online shopping, many internet retailers warned their customers ahead of time that their packages had a higher chance of arriving late, Frank Quix, spokesperson for Q&A, said to NOS. “Customers were already cautioned in the beginning of November. From our research, we see that 89 percent read the warning and 70 percent placed their order earlier.”

To avoid delivery delays, four out of ten consumers placed their order on-site at a local retailer. This tactic proved to be so popular that some retailers even set up their own delivery service for the festive period. Many web shops took precautions such as hiring more employees and Sunday deliveries to avert major setbacks in package arrival times.

The study from Q&A among 2500 consumers also showed that late deliveries was not a problem limited to one delivery company. The postal services with the most complaints were PostNL with more than 8800 complaints, DHL with nearly 3000 complaints and Bol.com with over 1500 complaints.

A spokesperson for consumer’s union Consumentenbond said they are understand increased workload during holidays, but only to a certain extent. “It strikes us that the number of complaints was higher throughout the year and postal companies could have done something about this earlier.”