Black Friday postal strike ‘represents major threat to UK retail’

A Black Friday Post Office strike will see retailers attempting to pass on 8.5 million parcels to other carriers, according to research by BearingPoint.

If the Communications Workers Union (CWU) opts for such action, the company warns that other parcel carriers don’t carry the necessary level of additional capacity or infrastructure to respond at short notice.

As a result, millions of retail orders will remain undelivered until after the strike ends, or parcels that can be delivered by other parcel carriers will cost retailers significantly more. For instance, even if carriers could deliver around half of the Post Office parcels (circa four million parcels) from Black Friday, this could cost them an additional £8 million – something which would be impossible to recoup from customers.

“A Black Friday strike could represent a major threat to UK retail at a time when the sector is desperate for a much-needed sales boost following a very lacklustre performance this year,” says Stuart Higgins, a Partner at BearingPoint. “If the CWU and its post office workers choose to strike during and immediately following Black Friday, their action will have a huge impact on the British public.”

He concludes: “It is simply not going to be possible for retailers to re-allocate volume to other carriers over that period and the backlog created by an additional 8.5 million parcels over that one weekend could take a number of weeks to recover, dependent upon the length of the strike action, when it is considered on top of what is already an operational peak for sorting offices and parcel carriers across the country in the lead up to Christmas.”