DECEMBER SHIPPING DELAYS

Hey everyone.

If you’re reading this, it’s more than likely that you’re aware of some shipping delays going on at the moment. You may not have received your order, or you may be wondering why your tracking information is not updating.

We’ve put together this information to answer a few questions you may have and to reassure you that we are fully aware of what’s happening and that we will ensure that none of you are left disappointed with your La Mort experience.

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Members of Royal Mail, the UK’s national postal service, have been carrying out strike action throughout November and are continuing into December. The strikes were scheduled well in advance so that UK businesses could work round them and, until the lead up to Black Friday, we had no real problems.

Unfortunately, after the 20th November it seems the influx of post being sent in the UK completely overwhelmed Royal Mail, and they stopped processing parcels for a few days. Royal Mail’s advice to small businesses like ours was that the disruption wasn’t severe and as long as we allowed a couple of extra days then things would be OK.

That has not been the case. Some of our orders are getting through, and some are delayed. The good news is that once orders are arriving in their destination country, they seem to be getting delivered quickly.

WHICH ORDERS ARE AFFECTED?

We get our mail collected in batches every couple of days. Certain batches seem to be affected more than others. Here’s what we know so far:

• As far as we can tell, order numbers #27033 (placed on November 16th) and earlier are either in the destination country being processed, or have already been delivered.
• Some orders seem to be stuck somewhere for 10/14 days and then suddenly move.
• International orders are affected more severely that UK orders.
• Orders are starting to move at random, not sequentially, so if you ordered at the end of November, you may get your package before someone that ordered a week earlier.
• International orders collected from us on Saturday 26 November (#27203 – #27577) are particularly badly affected by these delays.

MY TRACKING LINK SAYS MY ORDER HASN’T BEEN SENT YET

All orders placed before December 1st (when we closed) have already been collected by Royal Mail. Some orders collected nearly two weeks ago are still showing as ‘We’re expecting it’. Usually, this status means that we are waiting for mail to be collected from us.

What this now seems to indicate is that Royal Mail have stored our packages somewhere at one of their depots and have not yet scanned them onto their system to begin processing.

All orders are now with Royal Mail and not with us.

WHY IS MY TRACKING INFORMATION NOT UPDATING?

As well as parcels not being processed for long periods of time, the tracking updates from Royal Mail seem to be very patchy with little in the way of actual information, until suddenly they’ll appear in the destination country or get delivered. We understand that this is very frustrating.

All our items, once in the destination country, will be delivered by your own country’s postal service. If you paste the tracking number we emailed you into their website, quite often you’ll find extra information.

For example, if your order is being delivered to Germany, use the tracking number we sent you on the Deutsche Post website to see if there are any additional updates.

HOW LONG WILL I BE WAITING?

Unfortunately, we can’t estimate how long you’ll be waiting for your order. We’ve contacted Royal Mail business support numerous times, as well as checking how other small UK businesses have been affected to see if we can get any more information. What we do know is that the disruption has been massive.

From what we’ve seen, it’s likely that your order will randomly update over the next two weeks and then arrive.

Royal Mail’s official position is that all mail collected before the 8th December (our last collection was a few packages on the 6th December) will arrive before Christmas. Although that is still a possibility, it’s now not as certain as it would usually be. 

WHAT WILL LA MORT DO TO RESOLVE THIS?

We’re a very small team here at La Mort, and we always focus as much on customer service as we do on our artwork and products. We’re extremely disappointed that this is out of our control and that we have to sit by and watch it unfold, without being able to help more.

As a precaution, we sent all international mail fully tracked from the 26th November onwards and although this doesn’t speed things up, it does let us see what is happening and get a much better idea of the broader situation.

We are still confident that most orders will arrive before Christmas, but it’s a reality that some may not. We will be closely monitoring all tracking information between now and then and posting updates if we have any.

If your order has not arrived by January 5th contact us by email at delays@lamortclothing.com and let us know

If any orders end up being lost/returned to us, we will not leave any of you without replacements being sent out or refunds being issued.

We’ve been in contact with a lot of you already and we’ve been blown away by how understanding you’ve all been.

We really appreciate your patience while this gets fixed.

David and the La Mort team. 

ADDITIONAL UPDATES:

9 December | Some of the international parcels from the Saturday 26 November batch (orders #27203 – #27577) are finally on the move and are now showing as 'In Transit'. 

10 December | Nearly all of the international parcels from the Monday 28 November batch (orders #27578 – #27904) have been delivered.