Canada Post - Hard to believe, but ....

[zarzuella]

the clerk in my local post office tells me she has heard that there will be 'significant price increases' as of January 2005. The rumour she heard referred to letter post, US and Domestic - she had no information on small packet or expedited.

Anyone heard anything?

[auctiondropnship]

Malcolm I am your-chic-shopper
we changed our name about 5 months ago too
auctiondropnship lol

[shoplineca]

and you dont sign off as Todd. Trying to pull a fast one eh?

Well at least I gave you lots of praise to yourself!

If you are still doing the cross-border USPS thing, maybe you can send dis-and-dat an email and give him some advice. He is in BC and I assume in Vancouver and sounds totally frustrated with CP's costs for his items.

I looked at his auctions and I think everything can probably go by USPS Media mail.

Malcolm

[dis-and-dat]

Hiya all....and especially "chic shopper" LOL...thanks for suggestions, but I'm up in the Okanagan, kinda like being out in the back 40....or was that 50?? lol Have looked at dropping down south, but the distance and time have made it look not too promising. If I was at the Coast I'd hop across the border in a blink of an eye!
Think I was more pondering a way to "shoot the breeze" with Canada post....maybe with a Long, long list of names. And an even longer list of suggestions.
I'd been to a chamber of commerce meeting here...and get this...a considerable number of smaller businesses were getting together to arrange a "collector" system for small business and use a courier service (lowering their costs by leveraging their numbers). They....who are such a big sort of umbrella organization are moving towards doing it....and at the same time saying to Canada Post to take a flying leap off a very high bridge. Their rationale being that if they all band together and pull the plug on CPC services, Canada Post would have a heck of a time financially. But their thought is that it has to be BIG to succeed.
I dunno, I'm just getting seriously ticked and at the same time seriously damaged dealing with them. I get accused of price gouging on my shipping (Heck...I'm taking a loss on it most of the time!)
Was thinking of maybe trying to put together something from us eBayers, think that might be possible or conceivable.
Any thoughts or suggestions along this line, please shoot an email at me, they'd be the kind I'd like to answer! (I hope I'm not violating anything here but such talk. If I'm outta line, please let me know)
tisi2@telus.net

[shoplineca]

dis-and-dat
violation on talking about replacing CP? - No
violation on posting email? - Yes

Possibly post wont get pulled unless reported by lurker. You may want to copy and paste your post leaving out email addy and requesting your post pulled otherwise all yr thoughts and suggestions might be lost.

Canada is too big and spread out with tons of small communities a few big cities and nothing in between. As such it is impossible both logistically and financially for anyone to launch a replacement to CP.

Regionally and/or locally, there are independant courier businesses that have been set up to be somewhat competitive to CP and in fact they are used by some of the courier companies such as Fedex and UPS because it is impossible for even those giants to have the infrastructure in Canada to provide their higher-priced services.

Under current regime, CP wont listen (or they will listen with their ears close). If you came to them with an idea how they could generate more money, you will get their attention.

Being the monopoly that they are, they dont even care about the business they are loosing to USPS, for all that are able to take their mail across the border.

Saddled with severe management disorder which is offset by a very strong union, change will not occur within the beast.

Malcolm

[rd1000]

Canada Post has a statutory monopoly on letter mail under 500 grams. You cannot deliver it unless you charge at least 3 times the price of Canada Post.

Rob

[shoplineca]

Its delivered all the time by couriers, taxis etc. Check out the bike couriers all over town and what they are deliverying: one or two page documents requiring original signatures between law firms, real estate companies, investment brokers or letters in orignal form .

The federal governmemt uses Blue Line taxi in Ottawa to send 1-page letters and memorandums between offices.

CPs head is so far up their butt, they dont know what the heck is going on around them, what business they may be loosing, who is violating their monopolistic laws danada, nothing.

They have also lost a huge chunk of their junk mail business to a host of businesses, some local and some national.

That is not to mention what they lost due to emails and faxes.

That is why they sell domain names and have payment processing services and 2-eBay accounts and a pile of other money loosing enterprises.

CP Motto: Why fix what is broken, lets see what else we can get into and totally mess it up.

Malcolm

[rd1000]

Anybody can deliver it but they have to charge 3 times the price. THis works for couriors because people are willing to pay for the speed and personal delivery.

I remember reading about a company that was delivering lettermail in downtown Toronto competing with CP and they were promptly shut down.

I can't remember all the details though.

Rob

[shoplineca]

What I dont understand is even if you have to charge 3 times to deliver, wouldnt they be breaking the laws that protect CP, that dont permit delivery of mail under 500 grams?

Or is it that no one can deliver mail under 500 grams for less than $1?

I was on contract with a company that regularly sent 1-2 page documents across town for $4.50 each. We used another company that ran an Ottawa-Pembroke route for the same thing and another one that did Ottawa-Cornwall.

They were exactly courier companies comparing them to UPS or Fedex. They were alot less expensive and delivery was usually next day (similar to CP for where we were shipping).

I am not doubting the monopoistic laws, just their effectiveness. Is it possible that those laws are used to shut down anyone that is trying to challenge them on a bigger regional or national level only?

Malcolm

[recped]

Actually the regulations specify the lowest price that a private company can charge for delivery of addressed (non-ad) mail under 500 grams (not totally sure about the 500 gram cut-off but it sounds right).

There was a big blow-up in Toronto about 25 years ago, Consumers Gas decided they would have their meter readers also deliver bills, Canada Post went loopy and put a stop to it. As Malcolm pointed out you can't fairly compare the Canadian and US postal systems, it's all about population density and distribution two things which make the Canadian system much more inneficient than the USA.

A better comparison would be with other countries such as in Europe where Canada Posts rates do compare favourably.

Ben

[shoplineca]

That makes sense, that the $$$ figure charged is what Canada Post is protected for and not the size or weight nor delivery time of what is being delivered.

I recal something about that situation in Toronto with Consumers Gas and dont understand how CP could win that. I have oil delivered to my house and the bill is left after the tank has been refilled.

The other curious issue about the gas company is that they werent paying anyone to deliver their bills so the postage cost was zero.

You know there was a time when there was only ONE Yellow page book due to similar momopolistic laws and now we receive a second Yellow page book plus a local neighborhood one.

Gee now that I think of it, there was a time there was only ONE telephone company in Canada too.

Its only a matter of time!

Malcolm

[muminlaw]

Malcolm, there was ALWAYS more than one telephone company in Canada after there was more than one province getting telephone service! Ma Bell has been conspicuous by her absence in the west and I know that Alberta was served by AGT and BC by BCTel for a zillion years. In fact, Bell is still not one of our options in the west except for cell service - BellMobility is out here.

Glenda

[shoplineca]

Glenda
I know. The first stock I ever owned was in Maritime Telephone and Telegraph. I bought 1,000 shares when I was 19 years of age and sold those shares 7 months later after receiving 2 divided payts and made about $700 profit. That was alot considering I was earning only $350 per month in salary at Guaranty Trust back then.

I also lived in Vancouver and had BC Tel service me when I lived in the West End.

We had a number of other local phone companies in pockets of Ontario until Bell picked them all up. But isnt BC Tel owned by the BC Provincial Govt (like just about everything else)?

Malcolm

[shoplineca]

Sorry DIVIDEND payts NOT divided payts.

Too late for me to party. Good night

Malcolm

[rd1000]

It is not so much what Canada Post charges compared to the US that bothers me. I understand different countries, different costs etc. It just seems to me that Canada Post makes things more difficult and more expensive than necessary. I will give you an example. I was at the PO the other day and the customer ahead of me used ExpressPost. The clerk brings up a form and it is has a full color picture of a smiling kid on the front label. She tears it off and there is the same full color picture on the customer copy. WHY!! What has that possibly got to do with shipping? I can't see it helping the tracking or delivery. I can't see it helping sales. The lady folded it up and dropped it in her purse.

Malcom, I an sure you have been to a printer and know what it costs for 4 color printing. It is very expensive. Who has to pay for that? One guess.

THe USPS has a 2 inch by 4 inch little slip of paper (black ink). You stick on and tear one half for yourself after it is stamped. Does the same thing.

I just get frustrated when I see the crap over-priced beaurocrats come up with that we get stuck paying for. My guess - some CP executive friendly printing firm got a another nice fat contract.

Rob

[shoplineca]

Based on volume, the price is really insignificant. I would be more concerned that CP was simply overcharged because a civil servant with no background in purchasing or printing made the decision however the same problem exists within USPS.

I have over 15 years in the paper industry visiting almost every printer, converter and merchant in North America, Central America and the Caribbean and I owned a $40 million paper company that converted and printed paper for the food industry so I have some background in the costs associated with printing.

To be perfectly honest, I would sooner have our cheery high gloss, CP envelopes than the drab USPS ones that I can guaranty cost about the same to produce. Same with our currency.

I understand your position on this however because we both know there are areas that CP could clean up, become more efficient and cut costs.

In alot of ways, it is just plain and simple product marketing. CP wants people to associate Express Post with a picture or a theme and not just the product name.

There is a much better chance that the next time, the lady will ask for the service that has a picture of smiling kid on the envelope than she would ask for Express Post service.

Malcolm

[ospreylinks]

I agree with Malcolm that given the size of the print run, it would be more only slightly more expensive than say a 2 colour print run, but again slightly more expensive is still more expensive.

This same thought crossed my mind today when I was in the Post Office. I have a meter in my office, but had a couple of envelopes to mail that I hadn't run through the meter but wanted to get them out today, so went ahead and bought two stamps. What struck me was they were the Olympic Stamps (makes sense given the fact that the Olympics are currently underway), however these stamps are twice as wide as a normal stamp. Now I know the cost of producing this stamp was not double the cost of a normal stamp, but honestly it is certainly more expensive since it is using twice the paper, glue, backing etc.....

Again, I know the extra cost is marginal, but when Canada Post raises rates in the coming year it will because they will state their costs are increasing.... and if you have a hundred products that each contribute an insignificant amount more to produce, when you add up all of the insignificant extra costs it becomes significant.

I am a cheapie.... if I can save a nickel, I gonna do my danmdest to do it and I think Canada Post should do the same...

I would also like to know how much it adds to CP's bottom line turning itself into a retail operation, selling everything from phone cards to coin collections.... do they really make money doing this, or after to factor in addtional staff required to put together the collections, buy, distribute, extra counter staff etc.... does it make money?

Jeff

[recped]

ospreylinks wrote:

This same thought crossed my mind today when I was in the Post Office. I have a meter in my office, but had a couple of envelopes to mail that I hadn't run through the meter but wanted to get them out today, so went ahead and bought two stamps. What struck me was they were the Olympic Stamps (makes sense given the fact that the Olympics are currently underway), however these stamps are twice as wide as a normal stamp. Now I know the cost of producing this stamp was not double the cost of a normal stamp, but honestly it is certainly more expensive since it is using twice the paper, glue, backing etc

It's for the collectors market, I'd love to be able to sell a tiny little piece of paper that at best costs fractions of a cent to produce for 50 times the cost of production. If Canada Post only made the same boring stamps no one would collect them. I don't really know anything about stamp collecting but there are a number of small countries which make a substantial portion of their foreign exchange by selling stamps to the collectors market.

Ben

[shoplineca]

Guys, the cost of the paper, glue and printing is so insignificant for the volume it wouldnt represent a 1/1000th of a percent in savings for CP to standardize stamp size and do 2-colour printing.

The greatest waste in CP is NOT what you see but what you dont see. Its having triple the number of people working in administration than you would have in a comprable industry. Its the poor scheduling and resulting overtime paid out and the huge pensions, accumulated vacation pay and so on.

Its the secret deals that are negotiated with suppliers, the kick backs. Its the advertising dollars spent on TV, radio and print when we have no where else to turn to mail but with CP.

Jeff I would have agreed with you on the phone cards a week ago except last Friday at the Post Office while I stood behind 3-people, 2 of them purchased $50 phone cards.

I know they arent making anything selling domain names but there is NO administration costs for them either as they have partnership agreements with suppiers who are actually managing these products.

As a turnaround expert, I would restructure the organization starting with their senior management, then middle management and then go for the unions. That is where 90% of the waste occurs, not on the extra paper on stamps or extra ink on envelopes.

Malcolm