The Communication Workers Union, or CWU has said that Royal Mail workers voted by 89.1% to take strike action in order to protest the changes that have been made to their pension scheme. In response to this ParcelHero has said that the timing of this vote to strike is at an incredibly inconvenient time and could impact those that only send parcels at Christmas time.

With more and more shopping being carried out online, the threat of strike action near to, or possibly during the festive period could have a negative impact on customers. It is thought that any kind of industrial action carried out during the busiest time of the year could stretch the delivery networks of retailers in a period when e-commerce is overtaking in-store Christmas shopping for the first time.

For a number of families across the UK, any industrial strike action could lead to Christmas being effectively cancelled. Industrial action stretching into the seasonal period could have a significant impact. Even is only limited strikes take place, there will be a knock on effect that could lead to damaging consequences throughout the industry as other companies try to absorb and manage the extra volumes.

ParcelHero has suggested that it is customers looking to send parcels abroad, to locations such as Australia, who could already be looking at buying planning and sending their presents who could be hardest hit. This impact will be even more damaging if the customers are perhaps unfamiliar with other couriers that offer the same service such as UPS and DHL.

Last year it was calculated that Royal Mail delivered 130 million parcels at Christmas. If the company strike, this is a huge volume of mail to be processed and delivered by other UK couriers during the busiest time of year. Last year also saw e-commerce overtake store shopping for the first time ever, and if the trend continues, this could mean that there will be a lot of parcels to process and deliver without the help of the Royal Mail is strike action takes place.