Yodel Suspends Collections Hitting Deliveries

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A courier firm handling a large number of Christmas online shopping deliveries has suspended new collections for up to two days.

Yodel, whose clients include Amazon and Marks and Spencer, has put on hold handling new parcels while it deals with a backlog from Black Friday.

While the company stresses it is continuing to make deliveries, the temporary freeze on collecting further parcels for distribution will lead to delays of up to three days for goods to arrive.

Recent retail promotions such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday have led to a surge in online orders for goods, especially in the run-up to Christmas.

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Gallery: Black Friday: Madness In The Shops

Yes, really. Shoppers have wrestled over a television. It has come that, people. "Black Friday" is in full swing in Britain and the stiff upper lip Brits are famous for has well and truly left the building. This photo was taken at an Asda in Wembley, north London

Britain's high streets, shopping centres and websites have been awash with discounts as more retailers than ever embraced US-style promotions, seeking to kickstart trading in the key Christmas period

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The police had to be called in at several supermarkets around the country overnight as thousands of customers hunted for bargains

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The rush to grab a deal soon descended into chaos as fights broke out at stores and websites of leading chains buckled under the strain. Continue through for more pictures

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Websites of leading retailers have been crippling under the weight of clicks

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Yodel has apologised to customers, and said it expects to resume normal service by Monday.

But angry shoppers have been venting their frustration on Twitter over delivery delays.

Nick Fowler tweeted: "Hi, ordered over 2 weeks ago still nothing and Yodel tracking just says awaiting collection."

One exasperated post by James & Courtney said: "Never use Yodel. Been waiting a week and a half for a parcel on 24hr service."

Marke branded Yodel "the absolute worst", while Naomi Dolby said her experience over a delayed parcel had been "absolutely shocking".

She wrote: "I can't get hold of a real person at Yodel to track it down."

And in reply to one customer's delivery query the bookseller Waterstones tweeted: "Yodel are currently handling more parcels than they expected, so some deliveries are taking longer than we would like."

Yodel said retail promotions such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday had led to "unexpectedly high parcel volumes across the carrier industry".

In response there had been a "deferment" on some new parcels coming into its sorting centres.

It said in a statement: "By Monday we expect to resume our normal service. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause to our clients and their customers.

"We are working closely with our clients on their forecasted parcel volumes for the coming weeks, based on this we are confident that the action we are taking will ensure that normal service is resumed after the weekend."

In a Q&A for concerned customers on its website, Yodel said: "We spent months planning for Christmas, but even with our experience and those of our clients we underestimated how massive the spikes would be. (We were not alone!)

"The whole of the retail supply chain has felt the impact. Retailer websites have been crashing, there have been backlogs in distribution centres and all parcel delivery companies have felt the strain."

Posing the question of "Who came up with the idea of Black Friday?", the firm joked: "We don't know but if you find out please can you let us know as we would like a chat with them!"

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