In bad news for people who only feel alive when their online shopping arrives at the front door, AusPost is temporarily halting parcel pick ups for eCommerce retailers in Melbourne.
From 12.01am on Friday 1 October to 12.01am on Wednesday 6 October, AusPost is pausing parcel collections and business lodgements for eCommerce retailers in Greater Metropolitan Melbourne, in an effort to get through a massive backlog.
AusPost has said they’re dealing with “record volumes” of parcels that are usually seen around Christmas time, because of the effects of the pandemic. Which is already a lot of pressure, made worse by the fact that close to 200 staff are in isolation.
“The safety of our people is our highest priority,” a spokesperson for AusPost said, per News.com.au.
“This temporary measure will allow us to responsibly clear record parcel volumes while our Greater Melbourne Metro operations are impacted by major COVID-19 disruptions. Our team will continue processing parcels across the weekend in affected areas.
“We apologise for the inconvenience.”
The same issue happened earlier this year in NSW, where AusPost also experienced Christmas-level volumes of parcel deliveries from people online-shopping in lockdown, while the workforce was crippled with COVID-19 isolations.
The good news though, is that the pause on standard Parcel Post and eParcel services doesn’t apply to those outside of the Greater Melbourne area, and Express Post, Startrack Premium, Startrack Courier, Startrack Express and letters services are all running as usual.
Post offices will also be operating as normal, and same with collections from street posting boxes.
