Royal Mail Strike 2022 and how will it affect your food business (19/30 days in November alone)

The dates for Royal Mail strikes have now been confirmed for 2022. 

The months from October to the end of the Holiday season are the peak for most businesses, especially food manufacturers and producers. The strikes will particularly affect small artisan food producers that need cost-effective and reliable delivery providers. 

With 63% of November projected to be disrupted by strikes, the delays caused will be particularly catastrophic for fresh food providers. As an ambient food manufacturer, while the disruptions may not be as severe, they will still impact expected delivery costs and customer satisfaction. 

To combat the expected chaos, food producers can give their customers a few options such as:

1. Using Door to Door delivery at an extra cost 
2. Offering a lower cost option of Door 2 Shop where the customer collects from their local outlet 
3. Using a different delivery provider 

Some of the popular courier options are DHL, OptimoRoute, Evri, ParcelForce and DPD. However, the increase in deliveries on these suppliers due to the Royal Mail strike begs the question, can the delivery network infrastructure cope with the rise in demand with Black Friday and Christmas around the corner?

So what can you do besides choose one of the three options listed above to prepare yourself and your customers?

1. Use an inventory management system such as NotaZone to stay in control of your stock, customer order and delivery status via third-party integrations
2. Update your delivery charges or delivery expected arrival statuses on your eCommerce platforms and social media webshops to ensure customers are aware of any changes 
3. Forecast the impact of the increase in cost price due to supply chain disruptions, customer orders and delivery using your cloud platform such as NotaZone to ensure you can minimise any business implications due to the strike 
4. Make your customers aware of the impact the royal mail strike may have on their orders. This will not only help with customer satisfaction but also increase loyalty. This could be by including a 'Royal Mail Strike' delivery surcharge on orders to signal the increase in delivery charge is temporary and out of your control

If you would like to get started with NotaZone and understand how we can make tracking inventory to dispatch easier and more cost-effective, get in touch today!