Statement from the CUPW: More than 55,000 Postal Workers Officially on Strike
Summary: La discusión comienza con dinomitesales compartiendo un comunicado sobre la huelga total de los trabajadores postales de Canadá, donde más de 55,000 empleados están en huelga. zee-chan-jpn-books y mrdutch1001 expresan las medidas que han tomado para ajustar sus actividades de venta en plataformas como eBay durante este periodo. Algunos participantes como dobo5250 y tarnvik discuten las dificultades y costos asociados a la finalización de listados en eBay debido a la huelga. ilikehockeyjerseys expone detalladamente su enfoque proactivo ante la situación, optando por alternativas como UPS y discutiendo las limitaciones para los vendedores que dependen de servicios de correo tradicionale. Otros, como edubb101 y hansatrade, comparten sus adaptaciones personales, mientras que algunos como zee-chan-jpn-books buscan formas creativas para manejar el impacto logístico y financiero del paro. En general, la comunidad discute diversas estrategias para minimizar los efectos de la huelga en sus negocios online.
This is a full strike, not a rotating strike. New mail will not be accepted, and mail in transit will be securely held until the labour dispute is over. Prepare accordingly if you haven't already.
https://www.cupw.ca/en/statement-canadian-union-postal-workers-more-55000-postal-workers-strike
hansatrade
·1 year agoA funny update from ChitChats 😄
Update November 15, 2024
Starting today, November 15, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) has initiated a strike against Canada Post. There will be a complete shutdown during the strike, causing service disruptions and delays in shipments to many recipients across Canada. Canada Post will not accept any new mail, and all shipments already in the mailstream network will be held. Once the strike concludes, shipments will be processed and delivered on a first-in, first-out basis.
We understand how stressful this can be, especially with the peak season ahead, but there’s no need to worry! Start saving with Chit Chats today!
byto253
·1 year agoDropped off 6 packages to Chitchats yesterday, and joked with the guys there that I understand they fully support the negotiating process without government intervention 😁
I am using a combo of auctions that end on the same time and fixed listings with 3 day handling times so that I have enough items to justify the trip to Chitchats twice a week. Most listings are for $30+ items, not bothering with lower value items until this is settled.
hansatrade
·1 year agoThis is now a news no. 1 on CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/news
I switched to ChitChats - I now will drive 8 km, instead of 800 metres. I am sorry for all the sellers who cannot switch to another carrier. Hopefully, the situation resolves quickly.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@hansatrade
I rely on walking/transit to get around. UPS/ChitChats are not viable options for myself and many others. Anyone affected by this situation will be taking a major hit the longer this goes on.
ilikehockeyjerseys
·1 year agoNot specifically you, but if someone is in your situation where they live in an city with a Chit Chats drop spot but do not drive, Uber is always a reasonable option if you have the volume of sales to make it rational.
Extend the handling time to 5 days and do one drop on the same day each week. With Chit Chats, you can batch your packages in a shipping bag or box. So if you have say 50-100 bubble mailers or small packages, you can put them into cardboard boxes with a batch label. That way, when you walk into the drop spot, it takes all of 30 seconds to exit the car, drop the batches in the bin, and get back in the car.
Uber allows multiple stops. I have used it before and made a planned stop at Chit Chats and then had it drop me off somewhere else I needed to go, or had it take me right back home. Again, someone doing this would need to have high enough volume to where a $15-$30 Uber ride might break down to a minimal handling cost when divided between the number of orders they drop off.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@ilikehockeyjerseys
50 to 100 bubble mailers? You're killing me here!!! In my dreams!!! 🤣😂🤣
edubb101
·1 year agoHello,
Everyone is going to handle this differently which I completely respect. For me personally I'm adjusting my handling times and then falling back on my customer service skills to smooth over any concerns from my buyer. If the item is time sensitive or they are not ok with waiting for the labour stoppage to end than I simply can offer to cancel their order. In other words I'm open for business. We'll see how it goes.
All the best
dobo5250
·1 year agomaybe we sellers at ebay should organize and go on strike --- fat chance -- eh --
tarnvik
·1 year agoEnded two listings that unfortunately had bids. Penalized by Ebay with selling fees based on lost sales.
Thanks Ebay for your support during a difficult period!
ypdc_dennis
·1 year agoDid you cancel the bids first, before ending the listing ?
zee-chan-jpn-books
·1 year agoTo be fair, the strike has been looming on and off for two weeks though and eBay did have numourous warnings to sellers, so listing auctions during this time was a risky business move that can't be blamed on eBay. Buy-in-now woud've been a safer choice of listing if you didn't have a backup shipping option.
ilikehockeyjerseys
·1 year agoI understand if someone is just a casual eBayer and gets caught off guard. If I had a dozen listings of "garage sale" type items and only checked eBay when I received a notification, I would probably get caught off guard. For what is such a big news story, a lot of people didn't even know that Canada Post would strike until it actually happened.
For people who are knees deep in eBay enough to be on this message board, I'm surprised people were caught off guard. eBay has been very straight forward, offer additional services, extend your handling time, etc. We have known about the possibility of a strike for weeks.
Granted, I understand people who decided to still risk shipping with Canada Post under the idea that it was better to continue to make sales and then (if) the full strike happens they could handle INRs if they happen. But I don't understand how it wasn't evident that there was a risk/reward trade off in doing that.
I am on the otherside of the coin where I was too proactive about editing my shipping services and I probably didn't need to change things up as early as I did. So I maybe lost a few sales that way. So I'm not trying to say that I'm an expert or handled things perfectly. I'm just surprised that people are surprised I guess.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@ilikehockeyjerseys
Maybe something that is forgotten in all this is many of the Canadian sellers affected possibly sell a mixture of both large and smaller items. Those smaller items can go as letters. There really isn't a back up for that situation. And it's not like you can put only half of your listings on away and keep the rest visible. I guess you could move everything across the board to UPS knowing full well you would no sales for those items. But you would have buyers thinking under their hat why is shipping so high. Maybe because they do that already.
mrdutch1001
·1 year agofor some lighter weight/smaller items, UPS is not so bad a choice as eBay's UPS discount rates are reasonable & it is not overly expensive ...so that option is doable if necessary...
ilikehockeyjerseys
·1 year agoI am in that same situation. I sell media (lettermail), and then a mix of larger parcel items.
I originally created two shipping policies, one for "lettermail" items, and one for "parcel" items.
Why that approach failed:
What I found was that I couldn't use Stallion because the market for common non-collectors edition physical media skews largely to buyers in remote areas. I assume this is due to a lack of accessibility to reasonably priced high speed internet for streaming movies. Every four orders, I would get someone who wasn't eligible for Stallion shipping.
Stallion is not integrated with eBay, so there is no way for me to prevent those transactions. While I would be in my right to cancel them due to problem with address if I advertise that I ship with UniUni, the volume of Lettermail orders I do these days is low, and the profit margins are also low. So it's not worth the additional time spent on customer service to have to smooth over a cancellation with every fourth customer.
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What I did in response to that failing (prior to the strike, when we knew we would have 72 hour window):
Prior to the full strike, my short term response was to switch to Tracked Packet+Expedited Lite because in most cases items would be delivered in less than 72 hours. Additionally, I was originally charging Lettermail rates for those items, so my sales with Expedited Lite were going to be lower. Meaning, the risk of having outstanding packages not arrive before a possible INR could be opened was going to be low with me only shipping a few a week. Only one package was left in limbo.
_____
With a full strike announced, these were my shipping/handling options for Canadian and USA Lettermail orders if I did not want to remove the lettermail sized items entirely.
What I chose to do:
I opted for UPS. The logic is, it's a soft cancellation of my listings, but I'm still going to move a handful of lettermail items a week. The customers who choose to pay a premium for shipping will get a great outcome (their item arriving in 1 day in some cases), unlike with Stallion or Chit Chats where it could take 10 days due to the handling time needed.
Additionally, it's the least possible work for me because all I have to do is put it in a pile with my UPS stuff that gets picked up each day. I am paying about $2 a week on average for UPS pickups, because so many places are shipping with them and if I know I have a delivery coming my local guy will take my pickups without one scheduled. Otherwise, it would be about $5.
If I did not have a mix of parcel and lettermail, using UPS might not be appealing for the lettermail sized orders. But most days I have a few parcels going out UPS already. So if I have a single lettermail sized sale per day, it's not like I have to make a pickup just for one lettermail package. It's a sunk cost in both time and the financial cost of pickups.
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The "Not everybody has access to UPS, Stallion, etc" disclaimer:
Sharing the above is not an indication that this will work for everybody who has a similar part parcel, part lettermail type spread of items. I'm just sharing how I approached it, what problems I had, and how I chose to resolve those problems because it might save someone else the time spent with trial and error that I went through. I understand that UPS and other carriers available are area-specific and it won't be viable for everybody. That I am spoiled with a wealth of shpping options because I am central in a major Ontario city. The point isn't to dictate that switching to UPS calculated rates would work for everybody.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@ilikehockeyjerseys
eBay for the longest time has been heading to this thought in their head that one size fits all. There has been a constant target of removing choice vs adding. As most "Canadian" sellers and buyers for that matter know, that is not the case.
Even to compare dot ca to dot com we know that we are missing many of the bonus tools US sellers have access to. Yet they (eBay) will routinely state the playing field is level.
ricarmic
·1 year agoI have the luxury of not depending on income from here now as much as I did in the past, so I decided to "time away" myself before Nov 3rd, however I almost got myself in trouble with auctions running past my time away start date, which of course means I'd still have items running and potentially selling after it. My point is that despite spending a reasonable amount of time on this board and the various discussions, Nov 3 still snuck up on me, the 7 days away is hard to keep in mind when one's executing the everyday chores.
I've long worried that the auctions are an ongoing risk if ever anything health or family wise causes me to have to time away my store unexpectedly, as I'd potentially have a number of auction items with bids that I couldn't close without punishment.
My understanding, which might be wrong, is that closing an auction early without bids doesn't harm us but closing an auction with bids was the same as an out of stock BIN situation and gave us the nasty defects. I've so far never had to close an auction with bids on it so I don't know what "options" we have to pick from in that situation.
mrdutch1001
·1 year agosimilar situation for me in that I have not had the experience of having to end an aution with a bid...I think the wiser choice would have been to let the auctions go and find the best alternate shipping method, even if it meant some loss of $.... But I guess one has to consider which choice is "the lesser of the 2 evils"...
ricarmic
·1 year agoBecause I seem to always need a contingency plan, my plan if I were to get caught during the strike would have been to ask the buyer if they were ok with me cancelling the purchase until the strike was over then I'd relist the item (perhaps as an only for them item) and they could purchase it again. Them saying ok to cancel would give me the way to cancel without defects (buyer requested) and I could relist and it would be a normal situation after that once the mail service became reliable again.
Keeping in mind that my customer set is very well versed in mail order and postal challenges over the last 150ish years.....
I already have a couple folks on standby (they hadn't purchased anything yet) until my store reopens whenever that might be...
ricarmic
·1 year ago@tarnvik I think the lost fees is the least of the problem, I would have thought that would also create 2 bad defects as well, the defects "cost" will be worse than the selling fees. Do you see any defects from cancelling the auctions with bids yet?
mrdutch1001
·1 year agoDid you not have a backup plan for an alternate shipping method?
zee-chan-jpn-books
·1 year agoTime to end my listings! Thankfully my most recent sale just crossed the border yesterday!
mrdutch1001
·1 year agoam now on "Time Away/Vacation" both here on eBay and my other selling site...
No outstanding orders...all have been successfully delivered...Whew!
Now back to "life" and its day to day chores & tasks that don't involve online selling.