From next Monday, Royal Mail will be delivering Special Delivery letters and parcels later in the day. No longer will a Special Delivery arrive by 1pm, but with the new Special Delivery guarantee delivery times might be as late as 4pm. The 9am service will also see an extended delivery window and the guaranteed delivery time will become by 11am.
We’re not convinced by the wording of Royal Mail’s announcement calling which says this will “be improving our timed guarantees”. It would perhaps be more correct to say Special Delivery guarantee delivery times will become more “realistic”. With the Coronavirus pandemic showing every signs of coming back with a vengeance and the fourth quarter of the year promising to be the biggest ever for online shopping, it’s likely that Royal Mail will be stretched to the max and so enabling Special Delivery parcels and letters to be delivered without overly interrupting Posties’ normal route makes a lot of sense.
Often Special Delivery is used to ensure an item is delivered next day rather than because it’s needed first thing in the morning. If an item is urgent, both retailer and consumers will now need to be aware of the later delivery promise.
– Royal Mail“From Monday 28 September we’ll be improving our timed guarantees for Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am and 1pm services and will make the following changes:”
For items posted from Monday 28 September 2020 onwards, our guaranteed delivery for Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9.00am the next working day will change to by 11.00am the next working day
Our guaranteed delivery for Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1.00pm the next working day will change to by 4.00pm the next working day
This includes items where a Saturday guarantee has been purchased
