NZ Post asks for patience as Auckland drops alert levels to allow deliveries of non-essential items
Aucklanders may see some delivery delays as businesses start working through backlogs now the biggest city is dropping an alert level.
After a five-week lockdown at Alert Level 4, Auckland will move to Level 3 restrictions on Tuesday 11.59pm. Under Level 3, more businesses will be able to open for trade, and non-essential items can be delivered from Auckland businesses.
A number of Auckland businesses that were not able to trade under Level 4 restrictions allowed shoppers to buy items online to be delivered when restrictions loosened.
And NZ Post expected this to put pressure on its drivers over the coming days.
NZ Post chief customer officer Bryan Dobson said while the courier company had been hiring more drivers to meet the expected increase in demand, there might be some delays during the transition period between Level 4 and Level 3.
“Be patient ... things may take a day or two extra. Currently we're delivering seven or eight out of 10 items on time. We are expecting to see an increase in demand and we’re preparing for that,” Dobson said.
“But particularly when we transition from Alert Level 4 into Level 3, there is a likelihood that there may be some delays.
“Wait a few extra days before you call our call centre. Our call centres are very busy at the moment. Yeah, just a little bit of patience and understanding, but we're doing everything we can to get things on time.”
Before the August outbreak, NZ Post was delivering about 1.5 million parcels a week.
However, since the beginning of September, when the rest of the country outside of Auckland moved to Alert Level 3, NZ Post has been delivering about two million parcels a week.
This uptick was driven by Aucklanders given they were able to shop for non-essential items that could be shipped from outside the city.
“Auckland’s probably about 40 percent up on where it would be. And the rest of the country is up about 24 percent because click and collect is also available,” Dobson said.
Every year online shopping grows by about 10 percent on the previous year. And this year was not expected to be any different.
NZ Post typically had months to plan for the peak Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas sales, but this year because of the lockdown it had to ramp up capacity within days.
“Every Christmas is bigger than the one before. From now through to Christmas we'll be operating above the expectations we had last year.”
NZ Post delivered on average six parcels a second in the lead-up to Christmas and a total of 85 million parcels overall for 2020.
He said NZ Post would be operating at its “peak mode” which usually started in November.
“We’ve brought on 220 additional staff and we’re still looking to hire more for the peak period.”
First Retail's Chris Wilkinson said there would be months of catching up to do as suppliers try to get a handle on their orders.
"The home furnishing market for instance hasn't been able to open their warehouses so they've got weeks and weeks of orders sitting on wharfs. And that's going to have a downstream effect on retailers," Wilkinson said.
"The other issue is freight. There's been some real problems with the Interislander ferries cancelled."
He said the transmissibility of the Delta variant would also make shoppers apprehensive to go out and about, further putting pressure on online shopping.
E-commerce and shipping fulfilment software company Starshipit saw a 75 percent drop in merchants operating when the country moved into Level 4 last month.
But this had picked up slowly as more businesses were able to trade outside Auckland.
Starshipit chief executive George Plummer said electronics, health products and apparel were the most popular items people shopped for in lockdown.
Plummer also expected the next few months to be busy.
“Orders are going to be higher than ever.”
He said businesses should ensure they were managing their customers’ expectations.
“If there's delays, it's important to let people know, even if you're not exactly sure, it's just good to communicate. Another thing is to diversify the couriers you use. If one is having delays then you can use a backup.”
