ONE OF the State’s largest online schoolbook retailers has apologised for a delivery backlog, which has left thousands of children without books just days before the new term begins.
Schoolbooks.ielast night sought to reassure parents who have been unable to make contact with the company in recent days by saying the backlog had almost been cleared, and that all books would be delivered before the end of the month.
Some parents took to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter yesterday to express their concern over what they claimed was a lack of communication from schoolbooks.ie.
Fine Gael TD Mary Mitchell O’Connor yesterday called on the company “to get its act together” and to explain to parents why their orders had not been filled despite the money having been paid.
She said many parents were “extremely anxious, not only about getting their children’s schoolbooks organised as the beginning of the school year draws near, but also about what exactly is going on with the company and whether or not their hard-earned cash has been lost”.
Speaking to The Irish Times last night, the managing director of the company, John Cunningham, apologised for the delays.
“We moved to a bigger warehouse last November with a view to improving our service. We also installed a system to allow us to put a protective cover on the books and we made some changes to our systems.”
However, throughout June and July there were “bedding-down issues” and a backlog developed. This had almost been cleared and customers would have their books on time.
SuperValu, which is running a promotion with schoolbooks.ieas part of its loyalty scheme, said it had received a large number of complaints from customers who had experienced delays. It contacted the company and conducted a site visit to its premises.
"We were made aware of delays fulfilling orders due to the level of customer demand and an issue with their warehouse management system. We have been in regular contact with schoolbooks.ieand have been assured that all customers with delayed orders will be contacted by the company," a spokeswoman said.
“We are genuinely very sorry for the delays,” Mr Cunningham said. “We have let ourselves down in communicating with our customers, but we are getting things back on track now.”
