Ann: Completes Hampers with Bite Acquisition, page-29

On the Product Review website, there are now 642 '5/5' ('excellent') reviews compared with 50 '4/5' scores, 24 '3/5' or '2/5' ratings and 115 '1/5' reviews (latter is 'poor').

Some reviews continue to effusively praise HwB but I'm detecting an upsurge in complaints re alleged late delivery.

Couriers including AustraliaPost/StarTrack and competitor CouriersPlease are under immense pressure. The StarTrack strike that may go ahead this Thursday will compound problems.

An Australia Post courier employee said to me recently there was more work than one could poke a stick at. I see him or a colleague at least three times a week stopping at multiple houses in my inner Melbourne street. AP may be dominant but it doesn't have 100 per cent of teh small parcel delivery market.

It'll be at least 5 November in 'Locktoria' until department stores like Big W, K Mart and Myer reopen their physical stores in locations like the Melbourne CBD, so that's no help to businesses like HwB that cannot feasibly or cost effectively deliver hampers Australia-wide themselves.

Greater Sydney may 'reopen' sooner. Time will tell.

MBH-owned competitor The Hamper Emporium has similar problems, with the most recent five reviews complaining of either delivery delays or in one case, perceived poor value for money.

I hate to think what delivery problems will be closer to Christmas, even if retailers' shops are again trading in 'high streets' and shopping centres.