A quick round up for you of the last Posting dates for Christmas for the various parcel & mail companies

CCL - Boxby's preferred parcel carrier

• Monday 22nd December.  

• Standard Parcels at £11 plus VAT (£12.65).  We recommend Friday 19th December for any parcels to/from the Scottish Highland Postcodes, just to err on the side of safety.

Economy Services - 18th December 2008

• DHL Economy 
• Parcelforce Economy

Standard Services - Friday 19th December 2008 

• Interparcel Premium
• Interparcel Standard
• Interparcel Titan
• Parceline DPD
• DHL Standard, via Parcel2go, and Interparcel
• DHL Express/Premium
• Citylink Standard
• Interlink by 3pm
• Parcelforce Economy/48hr

 24hr Services - Monday 22nd

• Interlink by 9am, via Interparcel
• Interlink by 12noon, via Interparcel
• Citylink by 12 noon, via Interparcel
• Parcelforce 24hr
• Business Post/UKMail

Premium Services

• City Link, Next Day Express, Via Parcel2Go - Tuesday 23rd December
• DHL Same day, Via Interparcel - Tuesday 23rd December
• Datapost
• Parcelforce by 9am
• Business Post/UK Mail premium

It’s Christmas - Royal Mail gets ready for Christmas

Royal Mail is putting together a pretty package of solutions to help everybody get their Christmas cards and presents on time.

The Royal Mail is expecting a bumper year, with 140 million items due to be ordered online this Christmas.  Although many anticipate Christmas spending to decrease, in line with the uncertain financial times, the online shopping portion of total spend is expected to increase, as more price conscious shoppers use the internet to shop around and make sure that they’re getting the best deals.

The package of solutions, which are specifically aimed to help people who are not at home during the day to take deliveries of parcels include;

• evening deliveries, 
• Sunday deliveries, 
• In most parts of the UK, Royal Mail will undertake extra delivery rounds on the morning of Sunday 21 December and between 6pm and 9pm on Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 December to give customers a second chance to take delivery of parcels. 
• The opening hours of all of Royal Mail’s 1,400 delivery offices will also be extended from 15 December, and most will also be open on the afternoon of Sunday 21 December. Customers can also arrange redeliveries of items to their home address or a neighbour in the normal way via www.royalmail.com/redelivery  or ask for items to be taken to a Post Office® branch, through a service called Local Collect. 

Mark Higson, Royal Mail Managing Director, said: "Royal Mail is prepared for its biggest online Christmas ever and has taken steps to help people get their items as quickly as possible - even if they are not at home when we first try to deliver.” 

"The majority of items ordered online are delivered first time but we have put in place a package of measures to help people who are not home to receive the item, in cases where it is too big to go through the letterbox or requires a signature."

Sending Domestic & International Parcels/Letters & Cards with the Post Office & Royal Mail

Monday 10^th November – Eastern Europe, Greece & Cyprus

Monday 24^th November – Western Europe

Friday 5^th December – South & Central America, Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Far East, Asia, Australia & New Zealand

Monday 8^th December – Any International Parcels send through the Post Office using Parcelforce Worldwide.

Wednesday 10^th December – Japan, USA, Canada, Eastern Europe

Friday 12^th December – Western Europe

Thursday 18^th December – Second Class Mail

Saturday 20^th December – First Class Mail

Tuesday 23^rd December – Special Delivery