Currys switches out of Royal Mail as strikes loom

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Electricals giant Currys has dropped Royal Mail for parcel deliveries to minimise disruption from strikes during the crucial Christmas period.

Currys colleague carrying box for customer

Currys will stop using Royal mail during the strike period

Currys will suspend the use of Royal Mail and switch to an alternative provider, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Royal Mail staff are preparing for six days of strike action, beginning later this week and including December 23 and 24.

The action threatens to delay deliveries at retail’s peak period as many shoppers purchase online and is part of a wave of industrial unrest sweeping the country, including on the railways.

Currys chief executive Alex Baldock said the retailer uses Royal Mail for “relatively few, smaller parcels” and maintained that business was “easily switchable to another provider”.

He later told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: “There’s no great drama operationally for us. We plan for this sort of thing all the time.”

Baldock said that Currys’ prime responsibility was to the “UK households who want to get hold of their technology, particularly at this time of year”.

He added: “The bigger point here is that, clearly, on the one hand, we see with our own colleagues and our own customers up close the impact of the cost-of-living crisis that is obviously at the root of these strikes.

“On the other hand, it doesn’t help when our colleagues can’t get to work. It doesn’t help when we can’t get stuff delivered to customers and, of course, a wage-price inflationary spiral is simply going to make things worse for everybody for longer.”