All deliveries halted for this week due to very cold weather

Hi everyone,

I’m really sorry but unfortunately I have had to halt all deliveries due to go out this week due to overnight temperatures far below what we normally expect to see in late April.

Our cut off point is usually 5c for the lowest overnight temperatures. Normally in late April we expect to see overnight temperatures around us of 8c-10c, and instead they are predicting temperatures as low as 3c here, with other parts of the country experiencing even colder weather. Whilst it may be warmer where you are we have to consider the temperatures throughout the network.

Why low temperatures are such a problem.

When temperatures fall below 5c it causes two separate problems.

The animals may get cold

Of the two problems that low temperatures may cause oddly this is not the biggest problem. We do have thicker than average polyboxes (23mm compared to 20mm), and we can use higher power heatpacks which generate more heat, or, that last longer (up to 96 hours), and in December to February we mostly use these. Admittedly we don’t tend to have many in April, but, we do always keep some in reserve for shipping to more remote locations such as the Scottish Highlands.

While we don’t have enough in stock to cover all outgoing deliveries this week we do have enough to cover around a quarter of them. This however is not the biggest problem that lower temperatures cause.

The weather affects the delivery network.

The biggest problem with low temperatures is not the temperature itself. One of our suppliers frequently ships marine animals to the northern reaches of Finland for examples where temperatures may be -20c. The biggest problem with cold weather, especially when the weather is unusually cold for the time of year, is that it causes delays within the delivery network. Lower temperatures mean slower traffic speeds, more accidents, and more delivery staff off work due to sickness, however, what it also often causes is a sudden increase in the amount of people ordering all sorts of things online rather than venturing out in the cold. This in turn creates a sudden increase in the number of parcels in the postal systems, resulting in delays. This is by far the biggest problem.

Delays in transit whilst not often disastrous for the animals, it’s certainly not preferable. As well as the animals to consider it also causes problems for our customers who may then have difficulty arranging to be at home the next day too if the boxes take an extra day to arrive. With Royal Mail advising us that delays are more likely than usual, I had to take the hard decision to pull all outgoing deliveries for this week.

Having to let people down like this is something I absolutely hate having to do, particularly so this week as we had to roll extra deliveries into this week that we were unable to send out last week too. Unfortunately mother nature does what she wants and it’s something I have no control over.

The other problems it causes

As well as the other two problems above, delays in the networks also causes delays in parcels reaching us too. Some of our corals (especially Zoas) are often posted to us and these incoming deliveries are also often halted in cold weather.

But, it also causes delays with other incoming items such as fish bags, heatpacks, polyboxes etc. Several months back there was one week where the delivery networks were swamped with parcels. Normally when we order heatpacks they arrive the next day and to play it safe I ordered two days earlier than usual, and twice as many as needed, half from one supplier and half from another, so even if one parcel with half of them got held up, as long as one of the two shipments arrived within 3 days we would still be ok. Unfortunately one parcel took 6 days to arrive and the other took 10 days halting our deliveries from being able to be sent out. Since then I have made sure we carry much larger stocks of most commonly used items to try to prevent that happening in future.

While this was not a major problem this week, with delays of items incoming by post only affecting 3 orders that are awaiting named Zoas that cannot be shipped to us due to the weather. While this week the weather has not caused us any shortages of packing materials etc, it has in the past. I now try to carry much larger reserves of packing materials so this is less likely to affect us now.

We have also had delays in some stock shipments due in last week and this week, not due to the weather which would have affected some orders going out this week, but, due to the weather now delaying our outgoing deliveries these shipments should now arrive in time for those orders. At least one problem solved another problem rather than creating two problems I guess.

One very small bit of good news

The one very small piece of good news is that because we now book out deliveries in 4 week blocks, and this week was the 4th week of the block it does mean that I hadn’t yet booked any deliveries out for the next 4 weeks, which does make it a bit easier to ensure that all the deliveries that were booked out for this week can be rejuggled to fit over next week and the week after, along with any other orders currently over 14 days old, with more recent orders being shuffled into weeks 3 and 4. It’s not much consolation I’m afraid, but, at least the next 2 weeks weren’t already booked up which would have created massive problems all round.

It’s going to take me several days to plan out all the deliveries for the next 4 weeks (especially with two bank holiday weeks in there too), but, I will be emailing everyone with a pending order by Sunday night with a new delivery date. Sorry for the inconvenience caused, particularly if you’ve already had delays with your deliveries.

James