How are you choosing to manage the risk of lettermail to BC?

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

For people who sell cheaper items via lettermail, have you taken any temporary action to deal with the probable issues getting items to BC?

If you live in BC, have you successfully received lettermail from out of the province since the highway closures?

Are you risking issues with item's not being received by shipping lettermail? 

Or, are you essentially locking out BC buyers by restricting them from lettermail shipping? What I mean is, if you charge $1.94 for shipping, you edit your shipping table so BC residents are now charged $15 so that you can ship their item regular parcel or expedited? I say locking out, because raising prices of low priced items by 13+ dollars will result in people not buying them, because they are too expensive compared to other offerings on the market.

I am not asking, what is eBay doing to protect sellers. I am interested to know how sellers have decided to manage the risk with lettermail to BC. As well as the kind of experience anyone here who resides in BC might have had with out of province lettermail items they ordered for themselves. 

[reallynicestamps]

I'm into my quiet period, not many sales will occur between now and Christmas if things are normal.

I sent out one parcel yesterday from Vancouver Island and sent the customer a Message explaining that there was currently no land access to Vancouver, but the ferries are running, as are airlines, so there should be no problems once his parcel got to the USPS.

Then I crossed all my toes- because you can't type with your fingers crossed.

[recped]

There shouldn't be much if any delays with Lettermail except for things going to any of the small interior communities that are completely cut-off (and those people have for the most part been evacuated).

No problems I'm aware of reaching Vancouver, Kamloops & Prince George by air (Lettermail) so except for the areas actually underwater probably 95% of BC residents will see minimal disruptions/delays for Lettermail.

Different story for surface services such as Expedited, I expect delays there but maybe not for too long as the roads are being worked on. More rain on the way so the situation could change.

[ricarmic]

Generally speaking I'm lucky because my "domain" is used to mailorder. Stamp collecting has been mailorder for over 100 years.

This means generally my buyers are understanding of delays, especially postal.

My biggest problem is that the eBay processes provoke unnecessary cases when folks are often just asking if I have any more information than they do about the package process. I have a surprising % of cases closed by the buyer before the item has arrived. They trust me to look after them if it does not arrive, and I will of course.

So that's the long version of: I've done nothing different and don't plan to regarding the BC delivery situation.

Having said this, this approach has caused me some challenges, my late delivery % to the US is still hovering just above 2% which has me in the warnings phase (3% is where it starts to cause a problem). My two worst delivery times were December 2020 and April 2021 (causes in both timeframes well understood and discussed here). If I can get through this December with fewer problems I should be ok, however time will tell, things aren't awesome going into this Xmas season.

[ypdc_dennis]

Nothing much, waiting to see how things unfold.

Data points: I am in Ontario and in the last 5 days have

* oversize lettermail to Kamloops, BC (which I am told is east of the damage)

* expedited parcel to Vancouver, BC (I upgraded from oversize lettermail, just in case)

* oversize lettermail from Vancouver area (waiting to see how long it takes to come east)

🤔

[richardcm]

I put my two other eBay selling IDs on time away a couple of days after the disaster. However I did have a couple of sales to Eastern Canada one shipped by Expedited Parcel and one by Lettermail. They were shipped just before the storm and I think maybe they made it out of province before the disaster. Not sure because of busy Canada Post and Christmas volumes starting.

I checked the Expedited Parcel tracking recently on Canada Post site but it only shows being dropped off at local PO and processing in Richmond BC gateway.

I am a casual seller of personal items on my eBay selling IDs so no problem to use Time Away to halt any sales. I have less than 50 items each on the selling IDs.

I am reviewing my items for sale and proof reading them catching typos. Also checking the prices against similar sold items. Also adding new items slowly.

Hopefully I will remove the Time Away in late December.

[reallynicestamps]

The Victoria Times-Colonist reports that trains are getting through from the Prairies to Vancouver with wheat and other crops. Good for the farmers who must have been developing ulcers.

Nothing about return trips yet.

[recped]

Highway 1 is apparently likely to be reopened by Saturday morning. Detours are available for a number of the other blockages and the ones that are not are mostly secondary broads into small communities.

[recped]

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@ypdc_dennis wrote:

* expedited parcel to Vancouver, BC (I upgraded from oversize lettermail, just in case)

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Maybe not the best idea, Expedited Parcel is trucked to the West Coast while Lettermail always flies.

[richardcm]

In my post 6 I mentioned that I had sent a package by Lettermail just before the disaster. I just got feedback from the buyer so it arrived ok in Cornwall 0ntario.  I checked the Expedited Parcel that was sent before the rain hit and it is still showing processing in Richmond. I used the Canada Post website to check the status.

[dinomitesales]

Haven't changed a thing. Lettermail should be the safest bet since it travels by air. Plus, as others have mentioned, the highway should be repaired shortly.

I set my shipping to "Economy Shipping" which gives me a good amount of time for delivery. I'm not concerned.

[femmefan1946]

Canada Post is more flexible than you give them credit for.

While they promise surface shipping, they will upgrade to air if there is a need, just as they deliver on weekends during the holiday season, but don't advertise or promise that.

[zee-chan]

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@ilikehockeyjerseys wrote:

If you live in BC, have you successfully received lettermail from out of the province since the highway closures?

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I am in Vancouver, and I returned something (I bought the wrong model) to a seller in Ontario (via lettermail) last week after the flood started, and the seller received the item and refunded me this week, so no issues there. As others have mentioned, lettermail travels by air so it should be fine. Some of the bank statements etc I get are from Ontario too and those were fine.

[teenytrinkets]

I echo this.... lettermail should not be affected. I'm in the Vancouver area and I've received and sent lettermail fine in the past couple of weeks without issue (yet...lol).

Expedited is another story... i have a few packages in limbo going both ways. All roads into/out of the south coast will be closed for the next several days because of the atmospheric river forecast, so that may cause delays if those packages arent going on a plane.

[mcrlmn]

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/our-company/news-and-media/service-alerts.page

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

I'm into my quiet period, not many sales will occur between now and Christmas if things are normal.

I sent out one parcel yesterday from Vancouver Island and sent the customer a Message explaining that there was currently no land access to Vancouver, but the ferries are running, as are airlines, so there should be no problems once his parcel got to the USPS.

Then I crossed all my toes- because you can't type with your fingers crossed.

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New observation and how it relates to parcels going to the USA with the current BC road outages.

In the past all my Small Packet Air, Tracked and Expedited to the USA were by way of Richmond (guessing by road) and then down to LAX. Normal time from Calgary to LAX was 4 routinely 4 to 5 days. This no longer seems to be the path for parcels.

My last 2 USA small packet Air Packets have yet to see their normal 4/5 day scans and my other recent Expedited USA has taken 6 days to by way of Toronto. Fortunately it is heading for Illinois. Have to wait and see how how anything intended for the western USA gets routed going forward and how accurate eBay is with their estimated transit times.

Anyone located east of the interior of BC will most likely be seeing similar extended transit times until the road situations are resolved. Unless CP opts to ship by air for W. Canada to Richmond which is highly unlikely. 

Like they say on the news....Stay tuned for further updates.

-Lotz

[marnotom!]

For what it’s worth, I decided to check on an item that was shipped out to Vancouver Island by FedEx Ground from the Mississauga area on November 12. The scans since the 17th have all been from Calgary.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@marnotom! wrote:
For what it’s worth, I decided to check on an item that was shipped out to Vancouver Island by FedEx Ground from the Mississauga area on November 12. The scans since the 17th have all been from Calgary.

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Canadian carriers in the past.....CP/Puro, possibly Fedex may have reserved space with the airlines. Could be luck of the draw as to what gets on a plane and what sits til the next one. They may be still in the process of making alterior arrangements for short and long term.

I've had expedited to Toronto/Montreal arrive in 1 to 2  days and 4 to 6 days in the past.

-Lotz

[dinomitesales]

If anyone is curious what Canada Post has communicated to the post offices regarding everything going on in BC the answer is... nothing lol. I'm not even kidding, we haven't even received a single notice with an update on how things are progressing, or what they're doing with parcels heading out there (I'm in Winnipeg), or if delivery guarantees are suspended (technically they aren't but if you tried to file a claim I assume they'd blame 'act of god'??). Nothing. If I didn't watch the news, or talk to anyone else, or follow social media, I would literally have no idea something happened that is impeding mail service in BC.

This tells me that either it's such a clusterf*ck that they don't even have time to draft a plan of action and relay that to those representing them (unlikely); or they don't see it as too big of an issue (and/or they're banking on the highway getting fixed soon and this all blowing over).

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@dinomitesales wrote:

If anyone is curious what Canada Post has communicated to the post offices regarding everything going on in BC the answer is... nothing lol. I'm not even kidding, we haven't even received a single notice with an update on how things are progressing, or what they're doing with parcels heading out there (I'm in Winnipeg), or if delivery guarantees are suspended (technically they aren't but if you tried to file a claim I assume they'd blame 'act of god'??). Nothing. If I didn't watch the news, or talk to anyone else, or follow social media, I would literally have no idea something happened that is impeding mail service in BC.

This tells me that either it's such a clusterf*ck that they don't even have time to draft a plan of action and relay that to those representing them (unlikely); or they don't see it as too big of an issue (and/or they're banking on the highway getting fixed soon and this all blowing over).

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Pretty much like how pro-active ebay is in these situations. Even with an announcement that states they are monitoring. How many sellers are getting dinged for lates because of it and then trying to jump through all the hoops to get them fixed?

-Lotz