East businesses hit hard by postal strikes
They say strikes have made it difficult for companies to get presents to their customers in time for Christmas
Commuters face a second day of severe rail disruption today, as members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) are joined in walkouts by Royal Mail workers, and nurses prepare to take unprecedented industrial action.
As on the first day of the 48-hour strike, around half of Britain's rail lines will be closed all day, as thousands of members at Network Rail and 14 train operating companies walk out in the long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
Many parts of the country will have no services, including most of Scotland and Wales.
Postal workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will stage a fresh 48-hour national walkout today, their third of six days of strikes in the run-up to Christmas.
Royal Mail has brought forward the final posting dates for Christmas cards to December 16 for first class mail, and December 21 for special delivery guaranteed.
Local businesses, like Southend based company, Rosa and Bo , say the strikes are having a huge impact.
The company, which creates sensory toys for children has been left devastated by the current situation.
Owner, Laura Mudie, said: "It's been a very difficult year for small businesses. For the record, we support Royal Mail. We have a great relationship with our postman, who comes in everyday. But we do not support the timing.
"This is just making it so much harder. We rely on our Christmas period so much, so to have this much disruption on top of everything else, is just heartbreaking to be honest."
Despite warning her customers well in advance, some still haven't received their products.
Mudie added: "We encouraged our customers to order early, especially over the Black Friday period. But unfortunately some of those parcels have still not made it because of the backlogs and they haven't managed to catch up yet. So now, we're getting a lot of worried customers coming to us because they haven't received their items despite us dispatching them three weeks ago.
"Some of those packages are still not showing up as scanned on Royal Mail's end."
40-year-old, Jen Fuller, founded 'Etta Loves' after her daughter's reaction to her wearing a black and white jumper. Realising that babies gravitated to the colours, she made it her mission to create products capable of grasping the attention of young children.
She's developed a group of core customers, however, she's concerned that through no fault of her own, due to the strikes, her company will take a hit:
"I think we're going to have a potential onslaught of lesser reviews than we would like. We have 98% five star reviews. We're very lucky to have very loyal and happy customers. But now, we might have less people recommending us."
She continued: "Overall, if the experience is marred by them not receiving their product on time, my worry is that it's going to have a negative impact on my business and the perception of my business."
Despite offering alternative arrangements, Fuller is still under enormous pressure.
She added: "The challenge is that we're now seeing, is all the couriers are really feeling the pressure of this movement of parcels from Royal Mail. SO DPD is no longer guaranteeing next-day delivery.
"So, I've now got customers saying 'I paid for next-day delivery and now it's coming in two days', which is a fairly impossible situation and they now want a refund on their extra-postage, even though that's what it cost us to send."