Covid-19: Amazon France stops ‘non-priority’ delivery

Only hygiene products and basic household items will be considered “priority”. The new restrictions apply to France and Italy.

In a statement, the company said: “We must concentrate our available capacity to the highest-priority items, and starting from today (Saturday March 21), we will temporarily stop taking orders on certain lower-priority products on Amazon.fr and Amazon.it.

“Employees in our distribution centres will concentrate on receiving and shipping the products that customers need most right now.”

The rules apply only to new orders. Existing orders already in process will be honoured.

The rules apply to products ordered directly from Amazon, as well as those from third parties that use Amazon to stock and deliver their products.

Third party sellers that list their products on the Amazon site, but which do not use Amazon to stock, package or deliver their items, are free to deliver as usual, if they choose.

Amazon said: “Clients can continue to order a large number of products from third party sellers, who can ship them directly.”

The news comes as national postal service La Poste announced on Friday (March 20) that none of its staff would be working on Saturday March 21, and that all of its postal offices would be closed over the weekend.

Read more: No postal deliveries tomorrow in France

The company said that it had been operating at 80% capacity over the past week, and that services would be “back to normal” on Monday March 23.

The company has also introduced certain measures to avoid unnecessary contact.

Postal workers are now leaving home deliveries in your postbox, where possible, instead of delivering it to your door.

For any items requiring a signature, the postal worker may either text you to ask for your authorisation to leave it in the post box; or ask you to take a picture of your signature and send it to them, to avoid direct contact.

Online services on laposte.fr and labanquepostale.fr are still accessible.