It's a system called hub and spoke.
If you've ever travelled by air in the US you may be familiar with O'hare Airport in Chicago which is a huge hub.
The idea is to get everyone in the same place then divide them up to go where they intended. Rather than have hundreds of small planes flying, the airlines have dozens.
If ten people are coming from Sudbury to Disneyland, why fly direct? Send them to Toronto, add them to another 50 people coming from Halifax and Saskatoon and Fort MacMurray, and send all 60 to O'Hare where they join another 60 from all over the south , east and midwest USA. Now you have one plane with 110 people, two pilots and six attendants instead of seven planes with 14 pilots and 42 attendants.
Same with parcels. Winnipeg is a huge Canada Post hub as is Mississauga's Gateway.
If you look at map it seems crazy. But if you look at the overall picture of labour costs, equipment costs, and speed, the system works.
I have a real hate-on for tracked mail. It's useful for sellers who may need it to fend off fake claims on non-delivery, but basically it just upsets buyers who see odd, but reasonable, voyages like your parcel is taking, or think a parcel is still in Podunk Indiana, when the postie is knocking on their door, because most tracking is actually Confirmation of Delivery and all that is recorded is that the parcel has been accepted by the PO and that it has been delivered by the PO.
More important, if your parcel hasn't been delivered by 20 days after purchase, open an Item Not Received dispute. But that tracking will tell eBay if it has been delivered.
