An Post has said it required a “monumental and relentless effort” on the Irish side to resolve a row with the UK’s Royal Mail over problems that caused thousands of online purchases by customers in the Republic of Ireland to be returned every week to small British retailers.
The delivery difficulties stemmed from delays on the UK postal side in investing in technology needed to add specific digital codes to packages dropped off at local post offices in Britain by SMEs destined for the Republic.
These codes contain key information on the contents of the package and specify whether duty and taxes are prepaid; the codes are obligatory under new European Union rules for postal packages sent in from outside the EU.
Larger retailers in the UK who do a substantial amount of trade with consumers in the Republic were quick to implement the new systems post-Brexit but smaller operators encountered difficulties, which has led to substantial delays and purchases being routinely returned to sender.
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So severe were the difficulties that many small operators in Britain decided not to sell to shoppers in the Republic because of the likelihood their products would be returned before they had even made it to their final destination.
Before Christmas, An Post’s chief executive David McRedmond highlighted the issue in a letter to the Financial Times.
In that letter he accused the UK postal service of not looking after the interests of its own citizens and SMEs.
“It is crazy. It isn’t complicated. I do not know why the post office hasn’t implemented the system. It must act in British citizens’ interests,” Mr McRedmond said at the time.
His high-profile intervention caused consternation within the UK postal service but a resolution has been found and the breakthrough in recent weeks means that the UK postal service has fully adopted the new system, which should ensure smoother deliveries in the future.
“It has taken a monumental and relentless effort by our CEO and international mails team to get Royal Mail to put in place the necessary data capture systems for their own sending customers – individuals and SMEs posting at post offices- and by extension for An Post customers, waiting for those parcels,” An Post spokeswoman Anna McHugh told The Irish Times.
She pointed out that big brands who do a substantial amount of trade with shoppers in the Republic have “sorted all this out from the start so all the data capture and fees are completed at the online checkout”.
“We insisted [Royal Mail] prioritise it. British post offices are now installing the systems that ought to have been in place two years ago. It’s great news for family, friends and SMEs posting to Ireland and the customs process will improve rapidly from here on,” she continued.
She stressed that when customers are notified of a Customs or VAT charge, they should pay promptly at anpost.com or at their local post office, never through a random link.
