30th January 2023
Royal Mail have released the following statement:
We continue to make progress in exporting an increasing number of items to a growing number of international destinations. We are using alternative solutions and systems, which are not affected by the recent cyber incident.
Our focus has been on despatching the export parcels and letters which were in our network before the cyber incident. We have also been successfully despatching standard export letters since reinstating those services for customers on 18 January and International Tracked & Signed and International Signed letters and parcels since 26 January.
As a result of this progress and the further growing capability of our alternative export solutions, we will today (Monday January 30) resume our International Tracked services to all destinations for business customers and consumers buying postage through our online shipping systems.
This includes parcel, large letter and letter formats of these services. Online shipping systems will be enabled to allow customers to select these services, print labels and send items from 1200 today for business customers.
We continue to ask customers not to submit any untracked export parcels into our network for the time being. We plan to provide further updates on these services as soon as possible. At this time we are still unable to process new parcels purchased through the Post Office channel, however you can still drop off items labelled online, and purchase International letter format service at Post Offices.
Import operations continue to perform a full service with some minor delays. Domestic services are unaffected.
We would like to sincerely apologise to impacted customers for the disruption this incident is causing. Our teams are continuing to work around the clock to reinstate the remaining export services for letters and parcels as quickly as we can.
In short this means we can resume international shipping! We'll be shipping out everything over the next 24 hours so keep an eye out for a dispatch email! Thank you for your patience during this time!
26th January 2023
Royal Mail have released the following statement:
"As a result of growing export capability, we are resuming our International Tracked & Signed and International Signed services to all destinations from Thursday 26 January. Customers can now select these services, print labels and post parcel, large letter and letter formats of these services.
Delivery of International Tracked & Signed and International Signed items may take slightly longer than usual and customers may notice some difference in tracking information as items leave the UK.
We are asking customers not to post International Tracked (all formats), International Standard or International Economy export parcels into our network just yet. We are planning to provide further updates on these services in the coming days.
We would like to sincerely apologise to impacted customers for the disruption this incident is causing. Our teams are continuing to work around the clock to reinstate all remaining services for export letters and parcels as quickly as we can."
While this again shows promise that things are coming back to normal the services we use are still suspended. From the wording I would expect those services to be resumed next week.
Thank you for your patience during this time.
23rd January 2023 - PM
Royal Mail have released the following statement:
"We have now resumed international export despatches for all mail streams including parcels and letters across a growing number of international destinations. We are making good progress in despatching items that are already in our network across all of our services. Please note you may see less tracking information than usual as we continue to restore our services. At this time, we continue to ask customers not to submit new parcels for export, and we will update further on service resumption as soon as possible."
We've just checked internally and we are still unable to create shipping labels for parcels. We are presuming that they are clearing the backlog that Royal Mail has internally before opening the floodgates to everyone. Rest assured as soon as we are able we will get everyone's parcels out. Thank you for your patience!
23rd January 2023 - AM
Royal Mail have released this statement:
"Following the recent cyber incident, Royal Mail has resumed the export of parcels from Northern Ireland to Ireland. This builds on the recent move to resume the export of international letters to all international destinations. Customers in Northern Ireland are immediately able to submit export parcels bound for Ireland into Northern Ireland Post Office branches.
Online customers will be able to print labels on Royal Mail shipping systems from 1900 this evening. These services are currently only available for customers based in Northern Ireland. They are not available for customers based in Great Britain where export restrictions related to the cyber incident on parcels being sent to Ireland continue to apply.
Royal Mail continues to work with external experts, the security authorities and regulators to mitigate the impact of this cyber incident, with a focus on restoring all services for export letters and parcels. Our import operations continue to perform a full service with some minor delays. Domestic services remain unaffected.
We would like to sincerely apologise to impacted customers for any disruption this incident may be causing. Our teams are working around the clock to fully resolve this situation."
While these are steps in the right direction to get systems back up and running as normal it still means that we're unable to ship internationally using them. We have already prepared every parcel we can for dispatch and as soon as we are able they will be sent out. We apologize for the continued delay and hope to hear things will return back to normal soon.
18th January 2023
Royal Mail just released the following Statement:
"Following the recent cyber incident, we are trialling operational workarounds and have started moving limited volumes of export parcels. While we trial these operational workarounds, we continue to ask customers not to submit any new export parcels into the network.
Our initial focus will be to clear mail that has already been processed and is waiting to be despatched. We are pleased to announce that we have resumed the export of letters to all international destinations. From 1900hrs (Wednesday 18 January), customers will be able to access international export letter services again via online shipping solutions to print labels and send items which do not require a customs declaration (personal correspondence items). Items can then be posted into the Royal Mail network and via Post Office from tomorrow (Thursday 19 January).
Royal Mail continues to work with external experts, the security authorities and regulators to mitigate the impact of this cyber incident, with a focus on restoring services for export letters and parcels. Our import operations continue to perform a full service with some minor delays. Domestic services remain unaffected.
We would like to sincerely apologise to impacted customers for any disruption this incident may be causing. Please be assured our teams are working around the clock to resolve this situation and we will update customers as soon as we have more information."
While this unfortunately means we are still in the same situation we were before it shows that Royal Mail are making tracks to bring things back online. We are also looking into alternate solutions however integrating a whole new postal method is far from an overnight job especially for a team as small as ours.
Orders can still be placed on the website and will be fulfilled as soon as we are able to. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time.
16th January 2023
Hey Everyone!
The following information only applies to international orders using Royal Mail.
Due to a cyber incident at Royal Mail we are currently unable to ship products internationally using Royal Mail services. This is the current latest statement from Royal Mail regarding what's happening:
"Royal Mail is experiencing severe service disruption to our international export services following a cyber incident.
We are temporarily unable to despatch items to overseas destinations. From 19 00 hrs 13th January, we will be temporarily suspending all export services and ask that you hold any export mail items while we work to resolve the issue.
Items that have already been despatched may be subject to delays. This means that you will not be able to generate any labels for items being exported. We would like to sincerely apologise to impacted customers for any disruption this incident is causing.
Our import operations continue to perform a full service, with some minor delays. Parcelforce Worldwide export services are still operating to all international destinations though customers should expect minor delays.
Royal Mail is working around the clock to restore our systems. The security and safety of our customers and their data is of paramount importance. We are not aware of any sensitive customer data having being compromised at this stage. We would like to reassure our customers that we would inform them if this situation were to change."
However other news outlets are reporting this as a cyber attack resulting in their systems being locked and held at a ransom: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64244121
Either way information for when this is getting resolved is scarce with Royal Mail refusing to put any time frame on it. While we realise that this isn't ideal we hope you appreciate this is something truly out of our hands.
We are looking into alternative carriers to continue shipping products and will update you as soon as we have any information.
We will continue to update this page with the latest information as we get it.
For the meanwhile we will continue to package orders so that when we are able to ship them they will go out immediately. Please note: you will not get a notification until it's actually dispatched. FedEx orders are not affected by this.
To be completely clear this will result in the following orders being affected by this:
Rean X Crow Pin Pre-Orders.
Any Outstanding or new In stock Orders.
Any Apparel Pre-Orders made in December 2022.
We apologise for this inconvenience and are doing all we can to mitigate the delays caused by this.
Thank you.
