'Absolute nightmare' for small business as dozens of Evri parcels go missing in Cumbria

The business owner maintains more than 80 orders intended for delivery have gone missing since November after being handed over to the courier firm.

Ms Johnston has calculated the financial damage at a minimum of £2,500, covering both replacement shipping costs and the expense of recreating handmade products that never reached their destinations.

The troubles began when customers started contacting her in November to report undelivered orders.

Ms Johnston's investigation revealed roughly 55 packages had been dropped off and scanned at a Workington shop but were never subsequently logged when Evri collected them, effectively vanishing from the system.

The situation repeated itself two months later when approximately 35 additional orders went missing in January under similar circumstances.

Both batches of parcels have never been recovered or traced through the courier's network.

"For this to happen in November was an absolute nightmare,” she despaired.

“Just as the customers started to report this to us, it was leading into Black Friday, which is our busiest period of the year. We take about 60 per cent more orders that week than any other week of the year.

"We had to send all the Black Friday orders and replace the missing 55 orders, which was stressful.

“The revenue lost is also stressful for a small business. Luckily, we did well over December, and we are on the bigger side for small businesses, but if this happened to a smaller business, it would probably be devastating and put them out of business,” the entrepreneur explained to the Cumberland News & Star.

The January incident compounded her frustrations, in which she stated: "To have it happen again over the new year, just when we are getting back into it after Christmas, is another nightmare."

Ms Johnston has subsequently abandoned Evri entirely, switching all deliveries to Royal Mail despite higher costs.

“I have got no trust is Evri now. Although it is an additional cost to us and it is a bit more inconvenient in terms of parcel drop offs, we will have to use Royal Mail for everything going forward now," she said.

When Ms Johnston sought compensation through Shopify, Evri declined, citing that the parcels contained "liquid and/or glass".

A second claim was rejected because packages were "collected by courier or scanned at parcelshop only".

An Evri spokesman said: "We have been in touch with Jody to apologise for the delay and offer our support.

“We are helping Jody towards a solution with Shopify, the company she has sent the parcels with.

“Meanwhile, we're investigating an isolated issue, and we are working on getting these parcels moving through our network,” the courier service explained.

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