We stand ready to help small businesses impacted by postal strikes this golden quarter, says eBay UK boss Murray Lambell

Post vans parked in snow

eBay sellers are concerned about the many days of industrial action planned for November and December

This has already been an unparalleled year for industrial action. 

Strikes and disputes have taken place across the nation’s most important services and industries – from nurses and rail workers to university staff and teachers – and many with important causes that we support.

But a summer of strikes has quickly shifted to an autumn of discontent and is soon to be the grinch that threatens to ruin Christmas for businesses, families and communities up and down the country.

“There is no need to penalise the small businesses that are now at risk of losing critical Christmas cash flow”

We are living in unprecedented times. Increasing energy bills, rising interest rates and months of political and economic uncertainty have taken a huge toll on the way people live. 

But we must do everything we can to ensure the situation is not made worse for hard-working small businesses caught in the crosshairs.

The planned disruption to postal services during the most important trading period of the year will be a body blow to the UK’s small businesses, which are already fighting to survive. 

We know Royal Mail and the Communications Workers Union are holding further talks, so we call on both sides to double down on the mediation process to resolve this dispute as soon as possible, or delay further industrial action until after the peak trading window for small businesses that rely on their services.

Economic damage

In what has been a hugely challenging year for everyone, there is no need to penalise the small businesses that are now at risk of losing critical Christmas cash flow.

One of our sellers, The Hemp Shop, is the oldest hemp business in the UK, selling planet-friendly, everyday items, all made from hemp. It is based in the Quantock Hills in Somerset and relies heavily on Royal Mail services to get its goods to customers across the country. 

The Hemp Shop is not alone in this – some of our sellers tell us they have only ever used Royal Mail to fulfil their deliveries.

Trade at The Hemp Shop and others has suffered this year because of ongoing delays, complaints from customers and parcels arriving nearly two weeks after strikes have taken place.

While they fully support Royal Mail’s ambitions to modernise and respect their postie’s right to negotiate, they are hugely concerned about what the coming months will bring due to the many days of industrial action planned by Royal Mail workers in November and December.

“We can already see that every day of strike action has a huge impact on eBay’s community of small businesses”

At eBay, we are doing everything we can to try to mitigate the damage this will cause the hundreds of thousands of UK small businesses on our marketplace.

We are securing extra capacity with alternative carriers to alleviate the pressure from the strikes, helping our sellers make the most of these other providers to get their goods into the hands of their customers as quickly as possible. 

We have also put protections in place so delayed or lost deliveries do not hurt businesses’ reputations or margins in the long run. Equally, we recognise that customers sometimes do not recognise the effects these strikes can have, so we are updating information across our platform to manage expectations and keep customers informed. 

In spite of this, we can already see that every day of strike action has a huge impact on eBay’s community of small businesses.

So many small businesses and online retailers depend on the Royal Mail and its army of postal workers to help them through this key trading season. With more strikes on the horizon, this is only set to damage the wider UK economy when we need it most.

With the new prime minister Rishi Sunak in Number 10, we hope we can move forward and refocus the nation on growing the economy.

At the heart of that, we must support those that make up 99% of it – the small businesses up and down the country.