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AN POST has said it expects package volumes to reach 3.3 million each week between now and mid-December in Ireland’s “busiest fortnight of online shopping.”
This is a 230% increase over the same period last year, when more than a million packages were delivered each week.
An Post said that the increase in packages in recent weeks has been driven by a combination of store closures due to Covid-19 restrictions, online retail deals and advance Christmas purchases.
Recently, the service has delivered 2.5 million packages each week. An Post said that the next two weeks will be fueled by increased support for Irish retailers, along with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
An Post CEO David McRedmond said the service can cope with this increase in volumes.
“Processing and delivery are taking longer than normal and we are delivering record volumes of packages seven days a week,” it said in a statement.
We have 1,000 additional employees assisting us this Christmas and our delivery staff have new scanning technology and electric vehicles to help them deliver packages and letters to customers as quickly as possible.
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The service said December 7th is the last date to ship standard service letters and packages to the United States, Canada, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
December 12th is the last date for European destinations, with December 17 being the last date to deliver cards to Europe.
Earlier this month, the postal service asked customers to “bear with us” as it faced a 130% increase in parcel and parcel volume compared to 2019.
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