Five tonnes of packages from “Uncle Ali” arrive in Iceland

It seems that while Icelanders were stuck at home during the Covid-19 months they passed the time by ordering goods from Chinese online store Alibaba. The pandemic caused disruptions to the global postal system resulting in large quantities of parcels piling up before being sent to their destination countries all at once, K100 reports.

Workers at Iceland Post are now busy sorting out a single delivery containing five tonnes of packages that have just arrived from China. “We are talking about an enormous quantity of small packages and it is only to be expected that it will take some time to get through them all. We are doing our best and working as fast as we can,” said Mr. Brynjar Smari Runarsson spokesman for Iceland Post who confirmed that most of the packages originating in China are sent from AliExpress, Alibaba’s online retail service.

In recent years Icelandic consumers have grown increasingly fond of ordering all sorts of goods directly from Chinese online stores with AliExpress sometimes lovingly referred to as “Uncle Ali”.

Mr. Runarsson says that while the company expects one more extra-large delivery to arrive from China, global parcel delivery is quickly normalizing in part due to more frequent shipping of mail by air.