During the Covid pandemic lockdown periods, the postal and courier services have been massively affected. Not only have they had to deal with staff shortages due to shielding, isolating or illness but they have also had to cope with a massive increase in demand. When we first went in to lockdown in March 2020, many people turned to online shopping to get the items they wanted or needed. This initially caused quite a number of large delays as the companies were just not ready to deal with this surge. Parcels were getting lost and delayed all the time and there was nothing to do but just wait. Shops had to close their doors which meant all clothes shopping was done online and many retailers started to offer some pretty enticing offers to get people to still spend their money with them.

As lockdown restrictions are beginning to ease, it appears that the postal and courier services are now able to help. Many of them have had to take on additional staff to copy with the demand. They have also had to change the way they work to make it Covid secure and to ensure that parcels and letters are handled as little as possible. It is right to assume that many of these processes may well be here to stay for at least a good while if not permanently. 

Letter writing had been something that had seemed to go out of fashion and the number of letters being sent has massively recued over the years, but when people were not able to socialise out of their household at all, many turned back to letter writing to allow them to communicate with others in the outside world. This was especially the case for many elderly people who live in a home and were not able to have any visitors for a long period of time. Our postal services have been at risk over the last few years as companies now do much of their correspondence online through digital statements etc, but hopefully this little boost will be enough to keep them going for a few more years yet. The cost of stamps has significantly increased over the lats decade with a first class stap now costing eighty five pence compared to forty one pence ten years ago. This may be the reason less and less of us are using the postal service.