More delays lie ahead for consumers who did their holiday shopping through online retailers based abroad, as Russian Post announced Wednesday that it "is expecting a second wave of increased mail arriving from overseas."
After a first wave of packages for the New Year's holiday languished last month, the coming wave is tied to winter discounts in Europe and China, the postal service said on its website.
It also said it is negotiating with the Federal Customs Service "about simplifying the outflow" of packages through the international postal department.
That announcement came as Kommersant reported Wednesday that the postal service was blaming the delays in the first wave of items on onerous requirements imposed by the Federal Customs Service.
In December, the customs service instructed the postal service to return to a disused procedure of collecting full details of every small package from overseas, Kommersant said.
"Our productivity slowed down in December," said Alexander Timofeyev, an official at Russian Post.
The simplified procedure had limited the data collection to 30 percent of the original requirements.
The small packages affected by the delivery problems are those weighing up to 2 kilograms and having a total length, height and width of up to 900 centimeters.
Russian Post already has been snowed under by an increase in small packages from overseas, with the number of packages this holiday season almost doubling compared with last year's thanks to a boom in online purchases. That increase doesn't even include certified mail.