WE HAVE NOW RE-ENABLED UNTRACKED MAIL AND TRACKED MAIL DELIVERY SERVICES FOR INTERNATIONAL SHIPMENTS.

As of 4pm UK on Monday 6th February we have now re-enabled untracked and tracked mail delivery services for all international locations for orders placed from this time onwards.

Whilst the content below is no-longer valid for current orders, we have retained it for further reference of customers who have placed orders in January 2023 and been affected by the Royal Mail cyber incident shipping delays:

Courier / FedEx delivery remains available to many International destinations, and this delivery service is running very well.

Please note these important points:

1. This removal of Royal Mail International shipping services is TEMPORARY, and in place until the situation improves.

2. We expect to re-enable these services once we've seen Royal Mail process our backlog, probably during w/c 6th February..

3. UK shipping is not affected.  This includes Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland.

4. FedEx shipping is not affected.

5. Existing orders, previously placed with us that use Royal Mail tracked or untracked mail services continue to be delayed within the Royal Mail system and will be exported internationally within the coming days/weeks as the backlog is cleared.

Any existing shipments, for orders placed since 7th January, with order status currently set to either "Dispatched" or "Post Office 2..9" will probably be suffering from processing and export delays due to this cyber attack with Royal Mail.   These mail items will be delayed within the Royal Mail system and whilst delivery may be delayed, they should still arrive with you in the coming weeks.

UPDATES:

1st Feb 2023:  We are seeing Royal Mail process many of our International TRACKED shipments now, so if you selected a tracked shipping service then you should see an update and receive a dispatch email from us soon.  UNTRACKED shipments remain as a low-priority and are not currently being processed by Royal Mail.

5th Feb 2023: We are now also seeing many of our UNTRACKED shipments starting to process.  We hope to see all backlogged shipments processed within the next few days; and therefore we also hope to be able to re-enable Royal Mail shipping (tracked and untracked) later this week.

6th Feb 2023:  International untracked and tracked mail services are now enabled again.

EXISTING ORDER STATUS:

You can view information about discovering your existing order status and the status meanings on this page here.

ROYAL MAIL CYBER ATTACK INFORMATION:

The Royal Mail cyber attack occurred around 11th January and has been affecting parcels shipped prior to this date, and also parcels submitted to Royal Mail since then FOR INTERNATIONAL EXPORT.

Based on our current understanding, and information disclosed by Royal Mail, the systems affected are mainly:

• Customs information processing (ie affecting any export of goods requiring customs forms / documentation and associated processing)
• International shipment tracking systems (ie affecting the information relating to parcel tracking, the issuance of tracking codes and the updating of tracking information within Royal Mail systems)

As Shades of Coffee exports goods that always require customs processing, the first point above is directly impacting and delaying our shipments.  As many customers select a Tracked mail service, the second point is affecting our ability to provide tracking codes for existing parcels released to Royal Mail, and it will also be affecting the information shown by the Royal Mail parcel tracking web-page for existing parcels within the system that have yet to be delivered.

If your shipment has already left the UK, or when it does, you may find that additional tracking information is available by tracking it on your local mail provider's website, or by using a generic parcel tracking website such as 17track.net

THANKS!

Obviously this is causing us and our customers some significant frustration and annoyance, but is totally outside of our control - and it's not an eventuality that anyone (including us) could or would have planned for.

So we thank all of our customers for their patience and understanding with this difficult and annoying situation, and we hope to be back to normal and resuming all mail shipping again very soon.