Adapting to the “new normal” post-COVID
After a tumultuous and challenging couple of years for many small businesses, including ourselves here at British Gift Box, COVID-19 restrictions have thankfully been lifted in the UK and across most of the world. Indeed, on 5th May 2023 the WHO declared an end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency, albeit it is not the end of the pandemic itself. We were fortunate to have been able to continue to send our Gift Boxes to your loved ones across the world throughout the pandemic although global restrictions made it a much more difficult to always deliver our service to the levels that we set for ourselves. Thank you so much for your patience and encouragement during this time.
Because we send nearly all our Gift Boxes overseas, many of the challenges created by the pandemic remain in the “new normal”. These are detailed below so we’d ask you to make yourself aware of them to understand what they could mean for any orders you place.
Product availability
Global supply chain problems mounted as the world emerged from the pandemic affecting the supply and resulting in price inflation in many basic food commodities. This has led to shortages of some of the food products that go in our Gift Boxes as producers have had to adapt or re-prioritise production. The situation is changeable and exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine. Where one or two items in a Gift Box are not available we will substitute them with similar alternatives where possible. So please be aware that there may be minor variations to the box contents as described.
Longer delivery times
All logistics providers shipping overseas are still experiencing longer delivery times to some extent compared to pre-pandemic norms. The aviation industry made huge cuts during the pandemic and are now building back but have significant challenges in doing so. This means there are still fewer commercial flights to carry your parcels and the transport networks still suffers from some disruptions. Whilst the big private carriers like DHL have their own fleet of cargo planes to soften the impact, national postal carriers like Royal Mail have been particularly badly affected as they are wholly reliant on commercial flights.
This means that postal deliveries to many countries are still taking longer than normal. Economy and tracked postal shipments to Australia and New Zealand can still take as long as a month to remoter parts of those countries. Fortunately, express courier services like DHL & UPS are less affected and seem to be almost back to normal. The impact on global logistics is likely remain for the foreseeable future. It is more important than ever that you chose the right shipping option for your needs and it is up to you to check the latest status for the country you wish to ship to.
As our carriers cannot guarantee that your parcel will be delivered to their target timescales as shown in the International Shipping page, any orders you place assumes you understand and accept the risk of possible delays. Specifically, if you choose to send your parcel by economy (untracked) post, for which we have no visibility nor control over during transit, we will not be able to provide a refund or any compensation for excessive delays or non-delivery.
We’d ask you to consider ordering earlier than normal for birthdays and other important events to avoid unnecessary delays. Thank you again for your patience.
Delivery to the door changes
All couriers and postal delivery services across the world have made changes to their delivery procedures to keep their staff safe. Local policies apply but this means that parcels could be left without human or other unnecessary contact including:
• Without signature
• Without knocking on doors
• Without ringing door bells
• Without calling first
Country specific information
A number of countries have significant backlogs of mail and parcels to process because of previous/current pandemic restrictions and excessively high parcel volumes. You should expect to see delivery delays to these countries for some weeks to come. See further information from carriers and for specific countries in the following useful links:
Royal Mail International Incident Bulletin
Despite the ongoing challenges, we are doing everything we can to make sure you can still send some home comforts to loved ones abroad at a time when they may need it most.
Last updated: 15th May 2023
