Canada Post increases postal tates by up to 60% in 2014

[katou17]

Canada post jumping postal tates 60% March 31st - Sellers like me will be greatly impacted!!

[missu2]

As a Seller I always Offer Free shipping to my Customer and Now I guess have to Quitting this Option or Quitting from online Business

because last few years Canada Post increased Postage price is like Fortune. If any New Carrier comes with cheaper price everybody will jump But Nobody, Fedex/Ups is another story--If you ship anything Internationally through them they cut your Customer neck as Brokerage fees, So these all are the same ST---

lol

[femmefan1946]

Oh, traces from the glue stick. Unnoticed traces of the original postmark. No tagging which means the parcel is rejected by the machinery for manual treatment. Wowed or wrinkled stamps that have obviously been soaked off.

And of course, your customer might think that if you are willing to cheat on postage for pennies, that you are probably not a good seller to trust with his money either.

[femmefan1946]

 I always Offer Free shipping to my Customer and Now I guess have to Quitting this Option

You do know that Free Shipping is an advertising gimmick like BOGO or 'we pay the tax" and does not actually mean that the buyer does not  pay for shipping?

All that happens is that the cost of shipping is included in the asking price.

Which is cheapest?

$5 item with $15 shipping

$15 titem with $5 shipping

$20 item with Free Shipping

And which is likely to sell fastest? And which is likely to attract complaints of gouging on shipping?

Offering Free Shipping domestically, as you already know, means you don't have to pay shipping FVF on any shipping costs, including International .

Another poster has mentioned that the current drop in the Canadian dollar is pretty close to the rise in postal prices. Combined with TRS discounts, PP shipping label discounts (or using discounted mint postage from eBay sellers), and of course, Free Shipping, he figured the new costs would be pretty much a wash. Me, I'm dysnumeric, so my arithmetic skills are not up to his.

[lukey9]

I was at the Canada Post Office today and I picked up a paper on the upcoming price increases. It has that US and International and Over sized Letter Mail over 30 Grams will also increase and will typically fall in line with the New established pricing levels. It also  has prices for Parcels will not be increased. I hoping that Bubble Envelopes are not going to part of the increases but if they are it will kill my business and others as I al ready get the crying over the mailing cost and Insurance.

[pjcdn2005]

Parcels are going up as well..about 3 or 4%. There is no specific package for bubble envelopes so I'm not sure which postage you are referring to...perhaps light packet? That is really going up...from $2.65 + tax to 3.79+ tax for light packet USA. That will go up later this month when parcels go up. I believe that lettermail goes up sometime in March. I'm not sure if you've read the following thread but it has more info and some links.

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/New-Canada-Post-rate-document-posted-on-CP-site/m-p/18348...

Insurance...do you actually buy insurance for all of your packages? If so...do you really have that much loss? Most of your items are fairly inexpensive so insurance does seem like overkill. If you search for self insurance or cookie jar insurance, you'll see a few posts about it on these forums.

[lukey9]

Hello,

I get allot of items over 50.00- 100.00 and the people want Insurance and Tracking numbers on them. I use the Tracking Air to the US . I have cut out most of the Countries that I have problems with so that has cut it back allot. I sell quite a bit to Australia and that is the killer for Insurance, if it is small I use registered for the 18.00 but the larger Parcels are the ones that hurt the most. I find once you sent the Tracking number it cuts the theft problem back to nothing.

.

[pierrelebel]

"people want Insurance"

Insurance protects the seller, not the buyer.

Basically, as a seller it is your responsibility to get the goods to the buyer.  If the items do not get there, you have to refund.  If you purchase insurance (average cost about 2%) the indemnity by Canada Post will go to you, not to the buyer. 

Do you lose 2% of your shipments?  Of course not.  I would guess 1/10 of one percent at most.  Why give that money to Canada Post?

If your listings state: free insurance and you provide lower shipping costs overall, it will make your buyer feel better and safer.

[reallynicestamps]

And that insurance does not have to be supplied by the Post Office.

You can have an annual contract on your business that includes insurance on loss or damage in the mail. We use Hugh Wood International for this. They are the insurers for the American Philatelic Society, although they are a British company and have offices in Toronto. They are great if you are a collector or a dealer in collectibles. They understand your needs.

You can have one-off contracts with a company like shipinsure (I think I have the name right). Many posters seem very satisfied with their rates and coverage.

Or you can self-insure, sometimes called Cookie Jar Insurance. This just means adding a few pennies, based on your actual losses not your fears, to every asking price and tossing those virtual pennies into the virtual Cookie Jar. If by some chance you actually get a claim, you pay it out of the Cookie Jar, before Paypal gets involved, making your unhappy customer happy again and keeping your Seller Account clear of violations and black marks.

But as pierre says, do say in your listing that your shipments are insured. It promotes confidence in honest customers, and discourages dishonest customers who often confuse insurance with tracking.

[masterdetailer_ca]

You can also join the Canada Post Venture One program online and do your labels from their site.  It gives you a discount on some shipping and offers the Expedited Parcel, which costs the same as regular parcel but has $100 insurance and a quicker delivery standard.

Even if you go to the post office, you show your card and get the Expedited rate, although you get more discount doing it online.

Leland

[masterdetailer_ca]

As Canadians, we really have to let the Harper government know that we are not going to accept the loss of door-to-door service, it makes no financial sense nor does it make political sense.

From what I have heard, they are going to layoff 8,000 postal workers in a time when unemployment is a problem.  These postal workers will have to be replaced with large "super boxes", with a PO box for every Canadian.  In urban areas this means either buying or leasing space for them, a huge outlay of money.  They still have to have people who put the mail in the boxes and collect mail from street boxes as well as maintain the new boxes.

I would also imagine there will be a large outlay of money due to severance packages, because you know that the postal union is not going to allow its workers to be simply laid off.

If this is such a good idea, then why aren't other industrialized nations doing it?  Other nations are doing the logical thing, improving their services so people will use them more, not less.  An example: as we all know, we can send a parcel to the opposite coast of the US for less than to send the same parcel anywhere in Canada.  That is where things should be changed, by becoming competitive through pricing, not by eliminating services. 

Funny thing is, none of the executive will be affected, except probably for a nice raise with all the money they are supposedly going to save. (even if they don't save money, they will pat themselves on the back with a nice raise to make it look like they did)

Also, the post office has always made a profit, except in 2009 when they had the big lockout, so there is no financial need to reduce services, nor to have a large rate increase.

One last point, apparently, the whole idea of eliminating door-to-door service was proposed by a think tank.  A member of that think tank is the head of Canada Post.  Does anyone else smell a conflict of interest?

Write your MP, write your MLA, write your Senator and most of all, write the Prime Minister, who should already be voicing his disapproval of this plan, and tell them that we are not going to stand for losing services and being gouged for others.

Leland

[pjcdn2005]

---

@masterdetailer_ca wrote:

You can also join the Canada Post Venture One program online and do your labels from their site.  It gives you a discount on some shipping and offers the Expedited Parcel, which costs the same as regular parcel but has $100 insurance and a quicker delivery standard.

Even if you go to the post office, you show your card and get the Expedited rate, although you get more discount doing it online.

Leland

---

You are better off to use Paypal shipping which has about an 18% discount for expedited Canada and USA rates. Tracked packet is discounted by about 14%.

[Anonymous]

To masterdetailer.  Are you kidding to suggest to use VentureOne??

I just checked a few hours ago on VentureOne via Canada Post website for all information for postage and then check with PayPal Shipping (printed all information for references) and found to use PayPal Shipping is way much cheaper than VentureOne!!

I had one employee at Canada Post sending me an email wanting to help me to succeed to sell my items on eBay by using VentureOne to save $$$ on shipping and send me the lists of compare prices, needless to say she was clueless about PayPal Shipping.

So anyone suggest to use VentureOne would be greatly huge mistake.  Unless VentureOne decides to decrease their rates to beat PayPal Shipping but the problem with VentureOne or Canada post is that they don't use PayPal even I have suggested to them so many times for many years. 

Actually I am glad that PayPal Shipping is more cheaper and much easier for me as I don't have credit cards (I am not going to get one, no matter what due to my horrible past experiences with them, not worth hassle having to call them every month by phone when I find many errors on my monthly statements like they were charging service charges when they shouldn't as I paid my bills on time like 3-5 days earlier and yet they kept "sneaking" in the service charges when they shouldn't, so I had it enough and told them off since then).

PayPal Shipping is much cheaper than VentureOne or Canada Post (in person) at any time and you can work on PayPal Shipping in PJs like I do 24/7.  LOL.

[Anonymous]

Actually when I read that Canada Post "needs to reduce expenses", is when they need to lay off all those executives and those with too high salaries and reduce the number of "supervisors" on each floor.

I remembered I used to work at the post office during the Christmas Rush and saw about 20 supervisors on one floor in each shift!  Why not just have 1 or 2 or 3 supervisors on each floor??  Reduce them, period!!

First, start with those with way too high salaries, then reduce the number of supervisors, then reduce the number of phones!

Why phones?  Every time I need to call my local post office, they NEVER answer the phone from 9 am to 5 pm for 4 years straight.  So reduce the phone if they don't want to answer, period!!  That is the answer to "cut the expenses"!!

[angelineangel1]

I have been using FREE SHIPPING as an incentive to purchase my products, however the shipping rates are ridiculous and Canada Post is so extremely slow. I though of adding the shipping price to my product price, but who wants to pay $19 for a coloring book - even if it is brand new and educational? I have been talking to my friends on Facebook about the new Canada Post changes, and none of them are impressed - so if that is any indication, I think we will be getting more negative ratings than anything else. I am at al loss of what to do at this point. Will customers be willing to actually pay postage - for great quality service? Or is Free Service the only thing to get sales?

[Anonymous]

Two days ago I was checking PayPal Shipping for the shipping information and printed them and noticed that Tracked Packets to International countries comparing to XpressPost are very expensive, making XpressPost more attractive and reasonable.

With Tracked Packets the insurance is only up to $100.00 and cost about $4.00 to $7.00 less than XpressPost.  I would choose  XpressPost as they often arrived passed the "on-time" guarantee and we can claim for the refund for the late delivery.

Canada Post should offer Tracked Packets at half postage rates.

For Tracked Packet to USA, it is a few dollars difference from Expedited Mail.  I would think Canada Post should offer half rate for Tracked Packet.

USPS offers $1.00 for tracking number even on lettermail!  I paid $1.00 for lettermail and $1.10 for tracking!  It make senses since USPS and Canada Post have tracking machines, so why can't Canada Post offer us $1.10 for tracking on all mail service.  I wouldn't mind paying $1.10 for tracking on any mail service, at least we will see less of "where is my item?"

[Anonymous]

Reply to Angel.., the only thing any buyer will understand the horrible increased postage rates is if all of them are sellers as well that they knew.  But the problem is that most of them are not sellers, so they tend to "whine" about having to pay for shipping even if they are low!! 

I get many of whiners saying the shipping costs are too high as to their opinion and they don't understand that it is exactly what we were paying the postage and not to mention that we don't make any profits from the shipping costs and not to mention that eBay charges final value fees on shipping costs that come from my pocket!

I have seen some sellers list their items for 99 cents and sold for 99 cents and not to mention they pay for postage, plus final value fees on sold item, shipping costs, PayPal fees.  I honestly cannot see how those sellers are happy with it.  Anyone can explain?

[pjcdn2005]

With Tracked Packets the insurance is only up to $100.00 and cost about $4.00 to $7.00 less than XpressPost.

I've never seen Tracket packet just a few dollars less than Xpresspost. Which countries have you seen this for?

[reallynicestamps]

I though of adding the shipping price to my product price, but who wants to pay $19 for a coloring book - even if it is brand new and educational?

Some items are not meant for online/mailorder.

A $10 colouring book may cost $9 to ship, but three $10 colouring books may cost the same to ship. So the answer may be to offer a $30 lot with $9 shipping OR a $39 lot with Free Shipping.

Now, whether the parent is willing to spend that... well, we have to assume that most young parents are going to be somewhat cash-strapped. We have to understand our demographic. I have little difficulty selling books about the same size and weight as your colouring books for $50 to $125 plus shipping, but my customer is over 50, male, mortgage free and spending his hobby allowance. Far different from your customer, eh?

And of course, sell the sizzle not the steak. You have to make the customer believe that her darling child will be more intelligent after colouring your book than after colouring in the $1.99 book from WalMart. Smoke and mirrors probably, but that's the job description.

Yes, I am old and cynical.

[hope81026]

I guess I am behind the times as I did not know this was about to be our reality. What was really steaming my clams was this new global shipping. I talked a seller into sending me an item priority. The glabal shipping was 52.00. Well that still saved me because even though my item was charged duties they were less than half. I thought as Canadians we were paying plenty and possibly I could get back to selling to compete. Postal services have gotten greedy on both sides of the fence and my prediction is the only Sales that will last are specialty and maybe the odd seller who either doesnt know what he's doing or one who is very very savy about shipping. Irarely buy anymore because global shipping is ridiculous. Now I see Canada will be following suit. Shoppers Drugmart is where I have to go to pick up my parcels and nibody even bothers to tell me they have arrived! I have to call them. Some buyers would take it out on the seller when its out of their hands. I have been waiting for over a month fir a priority shipped (50$) pair of boots that were sitting at the post  and nobody bithered to leave a slip in my mail. Now they want 60% more. Sorry for the rant but this will be the end of ebay.

[cancost]

Just think of the extra eBay selling Fees based on increased postage!