Australia Post Gives Deadlines for Christmas Parcels and Cards to Arrive on Time

A man posting mail at an Australia Post postbox in Sydney, Australia, Sept. 2, 2013. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)

Australia Post is urging people to get their Christmas shopping finalised and posted early to ensure they arrive to loved ones on time.

In metro areas, parcels are advised to be posted by Monday, Dec. 13, for standard post and Monday, Dec. 20, for express post.

However, parcels from metro Western Australia and Northern Territory need to be sent out by Dec. 8 for standard post and Dec. 15 for express post.

For people living in locations outside of metro areas, Australia Post recommends sending presents out even earlier.

Christmas cards should be sent by Thursday, Dec. 16, while overseas customers are encouraged to post them “as soon as possible,” depending on the destination.

With parcel volumes already at record levels in 2021, December is predicted to be the busiest festive season ever.

Australia Post Executive General Manager Gary Starr said preparations for the peak season were well underway, including recruiting over 4,000 Christmas casuals.

“We’re seeing record parcel volumes with more than 5.9 million households shopping online a month—that’s more than half of all Australian households, and it’s showing no signs of slowing as we head into the online sales season and Christmas,” Starr said.

“We encourage people to make a note of these important delivery dates because although we’ll deliver items sent after these dates as quickly as we can, they may not arrive until after Christmas.” 

Australia Post has committed $400 million in new parcel facilities, fleet, and technology to help keep up with the growing demand for its services.

Australia Post CEO Paul Graham said it was essential that it continued to invest in major parcel processing hubs to keep pace with the online shopping boom during the pandemic.

“Australia Post has an unrivalled delivery and post office network,” Graham said. “We know our customers want their parcel delivered as quickly and efficiently as possible, so that’s why we are further increasing capacity with five brand new processing facilities before our peak period in 2022.”

More than 5.7 million Australian households are now regularly shopping online, which is expected to continuously increase by around 10 percent on average over the next decade.

Currently, the service is delivering over 10 million packages a week across the country after online shopping saw a 32 percent increase during the pandemic.