News & Status Updates
from our Delivery Partners
6th of February 2023
Last Friday Royal Mail sent an update explaining they can now dispatch untracked International orders (Standard Airmail) for business accounts. We are therefore pleased to let you know after almost 4 weeks of disruption we can now dispatch all International orders again, including both Standard and Tracked services.
Please note: Royal Mail are advising that deliveries will take longer than usual as parcels and letters are being sent by alternative solutions and systems. Tracked orders may see different or limited tracking information as parcels travel through the network.
We will continue to advise quoted delivery times from Royal Mail as a best case scenario, however please understand that we cannot process replacements or refunds lost or delayed parcels until Royal Mail's required delivery and return time has expired. They are as follows;
Royal Mail International Incident Updates →
3rd of February 2023
We are monitoring the situation with Royal Mail closely and as of yet still have not seen a resolution to sending International Standard orders via their Airmail Service. If you wish to place an order for International Standard delivery, feel free to do so, we will process, print and pack your order as usual and hold the item until we get the go ahead to dispatch it.
30th of January 2023
Following last Thursday's announcement that Royal Mail's International Tracked & Signed For service has resumed, they are now allowing their International Tracked service to be collected. During the last few days we have been using Tracked & Signed For for all international orders but we will switch back to our usual Tracked service from Tuesday the 31st of January.
26th of January 2023
We today received notification that orders being sent via Royal Mail's International Tracked & Signed For service are now available again. Should you need to order a print for international delivery, we would strongly recommend using this upgraded service. We are still holding back International Standard orders as per Royal Mail's continued request.
11th of January 2023
Late yesterday afternoon we received the following update from Royal Mail.
Royal Mail is experiencing severe service disruption to international export services following a cyber incident. We are temporarily unable to despatch items to overseas destinations.
We strongly recommend that you temporarily hold any export mail items while we work to resolve the issue.
Items that have already been despatched may be subject to delays. All export items already received by Royal Mail are being processed through the Royal Mail UK network and held securely for export processing to recommence as soon as the export despatch systems are available again.
We would like to sincerely apologise to impacted customers for any disruption this incident is causing.
Our import operations continue to perform a full service, with some minor delays.
Our teams are working around the clock to resolve this disruption and we will update you as soon as we have more information. We immediately launched an investigation into the incident, and we are working with external experts to resolve this issue.
We will continue to print and pack your international orders but have no option other than to hold sending them until we hear from Royal Mail that they are resuming their service. We will keep you posted!
Latest Updates from Royal Mail →
17th of December 2022
We can no longer guarantee orders arriving before Christmas, we are seeing many deliveries delayed due to ongoing Royal Mail strikes and we are also seeing delays with courier deleveries following recent adverse weather conditions here in the UK. Due to this we are unable to offer any refund or compensation for delayed orders during this time.
4th of December 2022
Late last week, Royal Mail updated their last order dates again, this time for UK letters and parcels. As such, unfortunately we have had to update and amend our own last order dates to compensate. Standard and Tracked/Signed For orders have changed from the 15th to the 14th of December, we are pleased to say that we have changed our Express Service from the 19th to the 20th of December, giving you an extra day to place your orders for Christmas delivery.
Last Order Dates for Christmas →
2nd of December 2022
Royal Mail have confirmed that CWU members will now be striking on Thursday the 15th of December.
1st of December 2022
Yesterday Royal Mail announced new and revised dates for last post to international destinations. Most dates have been brought forward by a few days, especially standard services with more time and therefore later dates given to Tracked Airmail services and their destinations.
Fortunately, we are working well within our turnaround times and we will not be adjusting or changing our last order dates. We will keep an eye on orders being sent to international addresses and make sure they're dispatched on or before Royal Mail's new last post dates.
Our Last Order Dates for Christmas →
29th of November 2022
Royal Mail workers are currently striking and have plans to strike on the following dates;
Wednesday the 30th of November
Thursday the 1st of December
Friday the 9th of December
Sunday the 11th of December
Wednesday the 14th of December
We will not have collections from our studio on these days and only small numbers of deliveries will be made, Special Delivery and Tracked 24 parcels will be prioritised.
Further potential dates for strikes have been announced by the CWU in December those being Thursday the 15th, Friday the 23rd and Saturday the 24th of December, these dates are only provisional and they have not yet formally notified Royal Mail that these strikes will go ahead on these dates.
Parcelforce employees are also striking on these dates and we are using alternative couriers, including UPS and DHL. Both services are running well and we'll continue to lean on these services for orders that would usually be sent with Parcelforce. Print only orders that are placed on our Express Service that are due for dispatch on Royal Mail strike days are being upgraded to a courier service on strike days and we'll continue to do this on strike days throughout December.
99% of print only orders, some Flat Wrapped orders and smaller orders with finishing are sent using Royal Mail so these strikes are of particular inconvenience to us, to our customers and their intended recipients. Please make sure you place your orders with us as soon as possible so we can print and dispatch them as soon as possible too.
You can find Royal Mail's own service updates below.
Royal Mail International Updates →
18th of November 2022
Stock levels in the studio are currently good with only a few exceptions within our framing and finishing department. Throughout this year we have seen delays to many of the materials we use including mouldings from our Bespoke, Ready-Made and Canvas Tray Frames and board for Window Mounts and Flat Wraps. We are currently experiencing delays with suppliers who stock our Bespoke Frames and Canvas Tray Frames, this is leading to delays to our own lead times. We are expecting deliveries next week and we will be prioritising all delayed orders making sure they're dispatched from the studio as soon as possible following the arrival of the mouldings.
