Postal Strike (UK) - Will we get our game??

Anybody else worried that they may not receive their game on the 30th?? Or maybe not even the 31st, 2nd, 3rd etc. because of this postal strike??

I was just at my local General Post Office to send an expensive jacket and the clerk advised me to send it using registered delivery as even with recorded, it could be lying about for days and could get lost. So I ended up paying £6.80!!

I am worried that my pre-order (from Zavvi) will not arrive on the day of it's release, and indeed in the days that follow.

Very worried indeed

I'll either be downloading via Steam or buying from my local Game/Asda/Tesco - whichever is cheapest.

It may be a problem. If you want things guranteed then special delivery is the only way forward as Royal Mail are still guaranteeing them. When i worked there and we were on strike back in 08, the managers kept the special deliveries going but not much else!

If you can afford it, why not get it from a shop on release day, then when your Zavvi pre-oreder comes, take that back to the shop? The shop cant refuse it really as it will still be in the wrapper. If they do get funny, just say you bought it as a present for someone and they already got it from someone else?

I have also bought from Zavvi

I am pretty sure that the majority will receive their copies. The Royal Mail are having a meeting about the strike and there is still a possibility that they will cancel but if they don't I have heard that another company will be called in to deal with the mail or something along that line.

I have also bought from Zavvi

I am pretty sure that the majority will receive their copies. The Royal Mail are having a meeting about the strike and there is still a possibility that they will cancel but if they don't I have heard that another company will be called in to deal with the mail or something along that line.

It still wont help deliveries. It would be impossible to get everything covered in such a short space of time. And if a 3rd party was to do it, i wouldnt be happy! After all, these are my bank statements, credit card bills, packages etc.

Also, dont hold out hope for an agreement, my past experience says this is unlikely!

I wouldn't bet on a released date delivery from Zavvii anyway.

The strike should be over by the time the games released anyway ....

The strike should be over by the time the games released anyway ....

Maybe, but the backlog that will build up will impact for a while afterwards!

From the BBC News website in the last hour:

Mail centre staff and drivers will strike on Thursday while delivery and collection staff will take action on Friday.

I expect things will have calmed down by next week. Even so, it will only be a day or so, I'm sure everybody can wait. I've just booked holiday for Friday 6 November until Wednesday 11 November, so as long as it arrives on Thursday 5 Nov then I'll be happy.

I also pre-ordered from Zavvi, and have noticed that on my order the dispatch date is listed as estimated to be the 30th, so it's doubtful that they will be posting the game prior to that.

Saying that I had the same thing with blahdvd last year where they had the dispatch date as the release date, posted the game on the Wednesday for it to arrive on the Thursday, but this year I am just hoping the game arrives by Saturday.

I work in a newsagent's and obvs there is a post office there. After asking, I realised the strike is only a day, (thursday, but carrying over to friday) but they may restart next week if they do not get what they want. My decision will be made after all this 'round' as to whether to cancel my pre-order.

From the BBC News website in the last hour:

Mail centre staff and drivers will strike on Thursday while delivery and collection staff will take action on Friday.

I expect things will have calmed down by next week. Even so, it will only be a day or so, I'm sure everybody can wait. I've just booked holiday for Friday 6 November until Wednesday 11 November, so as long as it arrives on Thursday 5 Nov then I'll be happy.

Only a day or so? Think about it. If the drivers are off on one day then the mail will back up in mail centre's. It cant even get to where its supposed to be delivered as, you've guessed it, there is nothing to transport it around on. Friday, mail will start traveliing to its correct mail centre for local distribution to delivery offices. But then, guess what? The poeple who do the last bit are out on Friday. Result, nothing moves again. Come saturday, now Royal Mail have ditched a night shift at most delivery offices, all that mail needs to be sorted again into the walks. Problem being, saturday is a short working day. Result, nothing of any note will move again. You can then add saturday's and sundays mail thats been collected, plus the stuff thats been backlogged in the system to Monday which will take a while to clear!

Believe me, for every day just one part of the Mail system is not flowing, it will take 4 days to clear. And there are 2 parts of the system out, over 2 days! You do the maths.

I work in a newsagent's and obvs there is a post office there. After asking, I realised the strike is only a day, (thursday, but carrying over to friday) but they may restart next week if they do not get what they want. My decision will be made after all this 'round' as to whether to cancel my pre-order.

Better explanation in post 12

here in italy, fortunately, we haven't this problem (for now )

From Zavvi help:

http://www.zavvi.com/deliveries.info?q=deliveries1&queryType=2

there is a 2 day planned strike on Thursday 22nd October and Friday 23rd October.

Here at zavvi we are committed to getting products to you as quickly as possible. Over the period of the Royal Mail strike we will be sending items out early where possible, to ensure you receive your orders as soon as possible.

We are dedicated to providing you with the best prices possible and while we are conscious that the Royal Mail strike may affect postal services in some areas, sending items out by courier would impact on the prices we can offer you. We thank you for your patience during this period.

If it comes, it comes. It's a game. Sure, it'd be nice to be able to play it on time but sure I can find something to do for a week or so if needs be.

Hopefully it won't be as bad as my pre-order of FM08 from sendit.com that never arrived until 2 weeks AFTER the release date. I cancelled my order, got my money back and bought the game from Tesco on the day the money was returned to my account. Sods law when I got home there was FM08 laying on my hallway floor, so I went from having none to two. The only plus point is I sold the spare version on ebay, and ended up getting my copy for free.

Zavvi are sticking to royal mail. Amazon are looking in to other companies! If you cant afford £30 then amazon might be a choice at £25!

I never preorder games, even ones in huge demand. The day after GTA4 was released I walked into HMV and picked up a copy, despite being told it was impossible. In my experience the big retailers always find extra copies (just be sure to get there as soon as it opens).

Zavvi are sticking to royal mail. Amazon are looking in to other companies! If you cant afford £30 then amazon might be a choice at £25!

Amazon's Est. delivery date is Nov. 2! So I won't be going for that.

I emailed zavvi asking if I will receive it on Oct 30th but I'm sure they will say they can't guarantee it so I may just cancel my order with them and buy from a local retailer. Anyone know which retailer is cheapest? I see that GAME are charging 29.99 for pre-order/delivery... will it be the same price in-store?

Zavvi are taking the option of sending out pre orders early which is good lets hope they dispatch FM10 this saturday

I need to go down town tomorrow, so may as well as some of the games shops how much they will be charging.

I'll be buying mine from my local GAME. How do they get their stock out to each store?

I'll be buying mine from my local GAME. How do they get their stock out to each store?

Courier i'd imagine

Maybe 3 or 5 workdays

To be honest,I dont think i will receive my game on the release day...

Why do you think they're going on strike? Everyone needs some time off work to play FM2010!

Why do you think they're going on strike? Everyone needs some time off work to play FM2010!

In that case, they ballsed up by a week

I thought Royal Mail is going to hire extra temporary workers "for Christmas."

I thought Royal Mail is going to hire extra temporary workers "for Christmas."

They hire extra workers "for christmas" every year.

Only a day or so? Think about it. If the drivers are off on one day then the mail will back up in mail centre's. It cant even get to where its supposed to be delivered as, you've guessed it, there is nothing to transport it around on. Friday, mail will start traveliing to its correct mail centre for local distribution to delivery offices. But then, guess what? The poeple who do the last bit are out on Friday. Result, nothing moves again. Come saturday, now Royal Mail have ditched a night shift at most delivery offices, all that mail needs to be sorted again into the walks. Problem being, saturday is a short working day. Result, nothing of any note will move again. You can then add saturday's and sundays mail thats been collected, plus the stuff thats been backlogged in the system to Monday which will take a while to clear!

Believe me, for every day just one part of the Mail system is not flowing, it will take 4 days to clear. And there are 2 parts of the system out, over 2 days! You do the maths.

You're as good as spot on mate, I work for Royal Mail and as I said to a customer today put the uniform aside I'm also a customer who has items waiting in the post (eg FM10 from Zavvi).

For me I will wait and see what happens but the CWU has said it will outline any further strikes by the end of this week. In other words there might be more strike action by the end of next week when FM10 is released.

So if that's the case and as has been said not everyone can afford the £29.99 in the shops but I personally will cancel my Zavvi order and either buy from Steam and download at 00:01 on release day or go later that morning into either Game or HMV.

You're as good as spot on mate, I work for Royal Mail and as I said to a customer today put the uniform aside I'm also a customer who has items waiting in the post (eg FM10 from Zavvi).

For me I will wait and see what happens but the CWU has said it will outline any further strikes by the end of this week. In other words there might be more strike action by the end of next week when FM10 is released.

So if that's the case and as has been said not everyone can afford the £29.99 in the shops but I personally will cancel my Zavvi order and either buy from Steam and download at 00:01 on release day or go later that morning into either Game or HMV.

Cheers , i was using my postie experience of the last strikes. It appears by peoples responses thought that they weren't listening to me .

I'll be buying mine from my local GAME. How do they get their stock out to each store?

Courier i'd imagine

No need to worry about them not having stock on release day then?

And by 'worry' I just mean about going to the shop and being let down. I won't actually be on the valium.

Only a day or so? Think about it. If the drivers are off on one day then the mail will back up in mail centre's. It cant even get to where its supposed to be delivered as, you've guessed it, there is nothing to transport it around on. Friday, mail will start traveliing to its correct mail centre for local distribution to delivery offices. But then, guess what? The poeple who do the last bit are out on Friday. Result, nothing moves again. Come saturday, now Royal Mail have ditched a night shift at most delivery offices, all that mail needs to be sorted again into the walks. Problem being, saturday is a short working day. Result, nothing of any note will move again. You can then add saturday's and sundays mail thats been collected, plus the stuff thats been backlogged in the system to Monday which will take a while to clear!

Believe me, for every day just one part of the Mail system is not flowing, it will take 4 days to clear. And there are 2 parts of the system out, over 2 days! You do the maths.

Cheers , i was using my postie experience of the last strikes. It appears by peoples responses thought that they weren't listening to me .

Don't worry about it I was listening.

It was obvious to me you knew what you were talking about.

Mind you those last strikes were the summer of 2007 and the summer lull, it wouldn't be as hard hitting as strikes leading upto Christmas.

All we're trying to do is make people aware that if there are backlogs of mail then their per order of FM10 could be delayed and if further strikes do occur next week then without a doubt FM10 will be delayed in the post if coming via Royal Mail.

Has anyone seen that Zavvi have now increased their price of FM10 to £23.95?

Strike aside glad I got my pre order in at £17.95.

No need to worry about them not having stock on release day then?

And by 'worry' I just mean about going to the shop and being let down. I won't actually be on the valium.

No need to worry about shops or online retailers not having any stock as they all would use their own courier service to transport the items around.

So if you're off to Game or wherever they will have plenty on the shelf on the day.

Yes i seen Zavvi raised the price. It was never going to be that cheap forever. As ive said earlier in the thread, to get around the pre order thing if you really cant wait :-

If you can afford it, why not get it from a shop on release day, then when your Zavvi pre-oreder comes, take that back to the shop? The shop cant refuse it really as it will still be in the wrapper. If they do get funny, just say you bought it as a present for someone and they already got it from someone else?

If more strikes are announced, the notice period has to be 7 days. This means that if more are to be announced towards the end of this week, then 7 days from Thursday/Friday is next Thursday/Friday - FM release day

Yes i seen Zavvi raised the price. It was never going to be that cheap forever. As ive said earlier in the thread, to get around the pre order thing if you really cant wait :-

If you can afford it, why not get it from a shop on release day, then when your Zavvi pre-oreder comes, take that back to the shop? The shop cant refuse it really as it will still be in the wrapper. If they do get funny, just say you bought it as a present for someone and they already got it from someone else?

If more strikes are announced, the notice period has to be 7 days. This means that if more are to be announced towards the end of this week, then 7 days from Thursday/Friday is next Thursday/Friday - FM release day

Well I can afford it, we posties are so well paid.

That's a good idea about the take back to the shop with it still not open in it's wrapper and claim it was an unwanted gift.

I'd better not order from Steam then.

The CWU did say like I mentioned they will outline any further strikes by the end of this week and thus around FM10 release day.

It goes without question the CWU will call more strikes as then it is a strong bargining chip for further talks with RM management.

Thus it would be better for all who can who have pre ordered online to either do like we said about the buy also on the day from a shop and return the other one, or if their conscience cannot do that just cancel pre order and buy from a shop.

They hire extra workers "for christmas" every year.

One of us is missing the point. There are hints that they will hire twice as many temp workers earlier in the year to deal with the strike.

One of us is missing the point. There are hints that they will hire twice as many temp workers earlier in the year to deal with the strike.

30,000 temproray workers, to replace 120,000 jobs! You do the math

edit :- and of them 30,000, 15,000 is what the Royal Mail take on every year at this time.

There's a way of looking at this, as far as I can see, which we should try and examine. Zavvi have said they will dispatch stuff early, to avoid the possibility of getting caught up in the industrial action. A couple of answers from folk in the know can clear up how successful this is likely to be.

1st. Has the game "gone gold" yet?

2nd. When do the retailers get their copies from the manufacturer?

3rd. Are they allowed to dispatch them early?

If we get these pieces of info it should make the picture a little more clear for us.

1 - Yes, thats why we have the demo.

2 - I wouldnt know. It will depend on how quickly it can get manufactured and dispatched to the retailer.

3 - I'd guess retailers aren't allowed to dispatch so its gets here early, but it dont suppose there is much to stop them either.

i have heard that about 30,000 temporary staff are being bought in to deal with the deliveries.

Post office staff should thank themselves lucky they have jobs, many dont at the minute

Well, the earlier the retailers get their hands on it, the sooner they can dispatch it to us. I'm not looking to win awards for stating the obvious - haha - but it seems to me, if they have it by early next week there's a chance we could get them, strikes or not.

The Post Office will probably NOT opt to strike next week, in my view. This would be a significant hardening of their position, and as a rolling strike action has not been called it would seem like jumping the gun. At this juncture I should tell you I hope they get what they're looking for; too many employers are walking all over their staff these days. The boys at the Post Office have my full support, and if it means I have to cancel my Zavvi order and pay a bit more in cash to get my game on the day, or wait until it gets delivered, that's a small price to pay. I'd rather put the extra cash towards the strike fund, personally, and have it in my hands a week on Friday .... but that's life.

The second phase of action will probably be delayed a few weeks, possibly closer to the first phase of the Xmas rush, to maximise the chances that it will have an impact and to give all the relevent parties a chance to get round the table and sort things out. It was the central topic for debate at Prime Ministers Questions today, so I would think politicians will start weighing in behind the scenes too ... and unless something totally unexpected and catastrophic happens to harden positions all round, I would think these strikes will be followed by a cooling off period before they get rolling again.

i have heard that about 30,000 temporary staff are being bought in to deal with the deliveries.

No, no that wont happen. Certainly not to deliver parcels and letters to households anyway. Any temporary worker has to be vetted first now and there isnt the time to do that. Could you imagine the people that could be handling bank details, credit cards, and valuable packages if they werent vetted?

Besides, even 30,000 wont touch the sides, not when there is a 120,000 on strike!

There's a way of looking at this, as far as I can see, which we should try and examine. Zavvi have said they will dispatch stuff early, to avoid the possibility of getting caught up in the industrial action. A couple of answers from folk in the know can clear up how successful this is likely to be.

1st. Has the game "gone gold" yet?

2nd. When do the retailers get their copies from the manufacturer?

3rd. Are they allowed to dispatch them early?

If we get these pieces of info it should make the picture a little more clear for us.

1. Yes the demo was released when the game turned Gold.

2. Anything from a week before to the day of release.

3. No.... retailers who release the game early can be fined and further action can be taken against them in the future such as Sega purposefully giving their competitors more units of the game... or just outright refusing to deal with them in the fufure.

Also any staff caught breaching the release dates can and have in the past been sacked.

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I pre ordered FM10 last night from steam, ive also got Left4Dead2 pre ordered as well.... all i have to do is sit back and relax.

LaytonBhoy - The union have said further strike action will be announced later in the week. There has to be 7 days notice by law now, so potentially a 2nd strike could hit in later part of last week!

When i was a postie, and on our last strikes, the union said striking during the christmas pressure period is PR suicide, and a fast way of abondoning any public support. My ex colleagues that i still drink with, tell me this position hasn't changed and its unlikely they will strike in the run up to christmas.

Yeah, I take your point Simon, but that's why I said I think they'll strike in the first phase of that period. The union has to discuss action and announce by Friday; that means the strike would have to be announced tomorrow to guarentee wiping out the pre-order. If it's a two day strike, announced tomorrow, we're buggered, frankly. If they don't announce tomorrow would I be right in saying it'll not be a two day strike? Is there a lesser effect of striking on a Saturday?

I just don't see the second wave coming hot on the heels of the first one. That really does harden positions and makes things very difficult. It could look like the union isn't willing to compromise, and THAT would be a bad bit of PR. Far better to cool things down, to get around the table over tomorrow and Friday and make an announcement Monday or later next week, and I think that's what they might well do.

Getting FM late is the least of many people's worries. I'm expecting a letter from student finance to sort my loan out and now that'll be delayed.

Yeah, I take your point Simon, but that's why I said I think they'll strike in the first phase of that period. The union has to discuss action and announce by Friday; that means the strike would have to be announced tomorrow to guarentee wiping out the pre-order. If it's a two day strike, announced tomorrow, we're buggered, frankly. If they don't announce tomorrow would I be right in saying it'll not be a two day strike? Is there a lesser effect of striking on a Saturday?

I just don't see the second wave coming hot on the heels of the first one. That really does harden positions and makes things very difficult. It could look like the union isn't willing to compromise, and THAT would be a bad bit of PR. Far better to cool things down, to get around the table over tomorrow and Friday and make an announcement Monday or later next week, and I think that's what they might well do.

Thats the way we striked back in 07/08. One a week. Esentially its not a 2 day walkout. Its one department one day, the other the next, but one wont work without the other so it will create maximum impact of 2 days whilst people only lose 1 days pay.

FWIW, striking on a saturday for the posties is great. It gets great support from the posties as it means a long weekend! With this, it means the union have until Friday to announce of there will be action next week aswell. My former colleagues i have spoken to seem to think its quite likely!

I work for Tesco and we had Fifa 10 on PS3 about 1 week before release date and we don't even sell PS3 games. As I work on the entertainment department I'll see if I can get a couple copies sent to my Tesco and so I can buy a copy before its released.