About 50 of the total orders that Sean Fothersgill, the proprietor of the model car retailer Pendle Slot Racing, receives each day come from outside the UK.
Those international orders have been sitting in a warehouse corner collecting dust for the past week. Following a crippling cyberattack, Royal Mail, which Fothersgill depends on for shipping, advised customers to stop sending items overseas on January 11.
Businesses all over the UK are unable to send packages internationally as a result of the bug, which has angered customers who are demanding refunds and put businesses like Pendle Slot Racing, which sells Scalextric race cars, at risk of losing business to rivals. Royal Mail continued to ask customers not to submit new packages as it began moving a small number of export parcels as it tested "operational workarounds" on Wednesday.
The most recent source of annoyance for Royal Mail customers is the cyberattack. For online retailers like Asos Plc, sporadic strikes over pay and conditions in recent months disrupted deliveries during the Christmas shopping season. Currys Plc, an electronics retailer, switched from using Royal Mail to DPDgroup for small-box home deliveries in an effort to lessen the impact of the strikes.
Fothersgill, whose company is based in northwest England, said, "We've been in business for almost 30 years, but this has been the worst two months of dealing with the Royal Mail in all that time. We’re missing out on orders.”
Royal Mail, the UK division of International Distribution Services Plc, has provided little information about the attack or a timeframe for when things will get better, which only serves to increase frustration regarding export deliveries.
Simon Thompson, the chief executive officer, claimed before a House of Commons committee on Tuesday that there had been no data breach, but added that the company had been warned against discussing any finer or more specific aspects of the incident for fear of jeopardising the investigation.
The backlog will cause additional delays even after Royal Mail starts shipping internationally, which will drive more customers to place their orders elsewhere. We had to hold back sacks of mail, and I'm currently looking at them, Fothersgill said. Only if they went on strike once more could things get worse.
About 70% of the orders placed with Sam Cornwell's Solarcan, a Scottish Borders-based pinhole camera vendor, come from outside the country. Due to delays over the previous two months, orders had already been hurt before the suspension of international parcels crippled the company.
According to Cornwell, who called the situation an absolute catastrophe, "about 40 parcels are still missing." Customers are only able to show sympathy for a certain amount of time before they begin requesting refunds.