An Post says this will be Ireland’s busiest-ever online shopping fortnight as it promotes Green Friday today to support local businesses as part of the Black Friday shop-fest.

The company says parcel volumes have been exceeding 2.5 million per week recently and it expects this figure to rise to 3.3 million per week between now and mid-December.

Globally and nationally, supply chains are working at record demand, according to An Post, so the message now is: order as early as possible, as delivery times are longer.

Chief executive David McRedmond said: “Parcel volumes have reached spectacular levels as the lockdown has driven all early-Christmas purchasing online. Our €30m investment in parcels automation ensures we have the capacity to deal with this surge.  Processing and delivery are taking longer than normal and we are delivering record volumes of parcels seven days a week.

“We have 1,000 extra staff helping us this Christmas and our delivery staff have new scanning technology and electric vehicles to get parcels and letters to customers as quickly as possible.  

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McRedmond appealed to the public to support Green Friday and Irish online retailers, to allow plenty of time for delivery both when ordering and posting. December 7 is the latest date for posting parcels and letters to Australia and other world destinations, while the latest date for Europe is December 12 for parcels and December 17 for cards.