Just me or are CANADA POST Fuel surcharges ridiculous?

[moltencore]

Great news! (sarcasm). on the CP website they have annouced that the estimated Canada P ost fuel surcharge effective September 5, 2005 to October 2, 2005 will be 6.75%.
then I went further and read the following:
"Effective in April of 2003, Canada Post implemented a fuel surcharge based on the average price of Regular Unleaded gasoline as measured by MJ Ervin and Associates, an independent company that monitors fuel prices in Canada. Each month thereafter, the fuel surcharge will be reviewed and adjusted as the average price changes.

Listed below is the new fuel surcharge rate scale, effective August 22, 2005, modified due to the continued volatility in fuel prices.

Canada Average Regular Unleaded Gasoline Price (C$/Litre) * Surcharge Amount:
At Least But Less Than
$0.69 $0.72 4.75%
$0.72 $0.75 5.00%
$0.75 $0.78 5.25%
$0.78 $0.81 5.50%
$0.81 $0.84 5.75%
$0.84 $0.87 6.00%
$0.87 $0.90 6.25%
$0.90 $0.93 6.50%
$0.93 $0.96 6.75%
$0.96 $0.99 7.00%
$0.99 $1.02 7.25%
$1.02 $1.05 7.50%

Note: The fuel surcharge percentages and associated trigger points are subject to change without notice. Should fuel prices rise/fall beyond the prices noted, the table will be updated."

OK - so it is based on regular unleaded fuel? I didn't know packages sent internationally used reg. unleaded to get there and since gas is at $1.00 currently will the "surcharge" be over 10% by January coupled with an expected increase to small packet and parcel rates? (which averaged 10 - 18% Jan 2005!) This CP gouging is getting so ridiculous how is a small mailorder business supposed to survive? Paypal Fees/Canada Post Fees - if I added these all in together to cover my ACTUAL costs on shipping my customers would be shocked! just venting...(I've already made similar comments in the CP Forum prior to their "workshop" tomorrow. Gail

[muminlaw]

Gail, where are you that gas is $1.00? Here in Victoria it's $1.119 today!!!!! I'm thinking of buying Honda Jazz scooter ... 200 klicks to the gallon! If only I could figure a way to haul my clubs and cart on a scooter!!

Any ideas?? (And no, they wouldn't fit in a back-pack and I'm too old to carry a full set of clubs anyhow)
. Glenda
To Golf or Not To Golf? What a stupid question!

[fenian]

Hi Glenda.........you could switch to using Nerf balls and clubs (They can be crushed down and jammed into a backpack).

Not being a golfer (never could see the sense in whacking away at a ball, then spending the next half hour trying to figure out where it went), I wondered if you couldn't store your clubs at the course (does Cedar Hill have long-term lockers ?)...sort of like having your own beer mug hanging behind the bar of a pub. Then you could buy your Jazz to zip over there unencumbered apart from your eBay-on-the-road T-shirt, use your gas savings to pay for the locker, and avoid having all those iron + wood stick thingies piled up among the teetering stacks of postcards (and heaps of US tokens which now cost too much to ship back down there thanks to Canada Post)..........Michael

[vesivus]

All courier/transport companies charge fuel surcharges. It's their hedge against a major cost in their business. I've just done a lot of phoning around to find another shipping company, and they all quote surcharges for fuel.

Just as all the news reports have been saying -- any increase in the price of oil per barrel always percolates to the end consumer. Guess what? We'll either take the loss out of our margins or pass the cost onto our customers...

I'm no "supporter" of Canada Post -- I think its an overly-bureaucratic, highly inefficent monopoly of an organization, but in this case, I can't argue to much with this policy of theirs.

John

[recped]

I'll have to go along with vesivus as well. I remember my first encounter with fuel surcharges back in the very early 80's, after a few years the price of fuel did drop dramatically and the surcharges went away. I doubt very much that $60 or $70 oil is the new low number for a barrel, a strong downturn in worldwide economic activity could send the price of oil tumbling back to the $25 - $40 range at which point CP's fuel surcharges would probably disappear. Certainly it's better than a flat across the board rate increase which I doubt would ever be rolled back.

Ben
"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915

[zarzuella]

Glenda,

Look into getting a sidecar - you know, the thing the Two Fat Ladies used. I always thought thy were so cool 🙂

Ann

[moltencore]

Glenda - gas here in Toronto was 99.9/lite yesterday. 🙂

Ben - my point was fuel surcharges are not something I perosnally can keep building into my customers ship costs every month as prices rise and rise. I have some customers who buy the same # of items every time they purchase from me and if the ship price I quote them on each order is rising every time to reflect CPs rising fuel surcharges - some of these repeat customers might not come back. I quite frankly cannnot afford to be eating ship costs. Canada Post also claimed their dramatically rising postage costs had to do with increased fuel costs. IMHO they can't have it both ways.

my other snide point was regarding the fact these surcharges are based on REGULAR UNLEADED fuel. I don't know of too many FREIGHT trucks, trains, planes, ships running on regular gasoline.

If freight companies can add surcharges to offset fuel costs and that doesn't seem to bother people, then why shouldn't we allowed to add surcharges to offset eBay and paypal fees? they're a major cost in MY business. LOL. Gail

[recped]

Gail

Well of course you can add you own surcharge (include in shipping and HANDLING) but as you explain your customers may not be happy just as you the customer are not happy with Canada post.

I certainly understand the issue but the surcharge is a small portion of the total shipping amount, if the small increases in the surcharge is enough to cause you to be shipping at a loss you need to be raising your prices for shipping and handling and/or starting your widgets at a higher price to compensate.

Fortunately the surcharge does not apply to small packets which I assume represents the bulk of your mailings. For domestic customers every shipment to a repeat customer must vary somewhat anyway due to the cubing effect.

I'm actually quite surprised that when I indicate a price to ship an LP to the USA (currently US$6.75) and then have to tell a buyer in Alberta that it's going to cost closer to US$9.00 I don't seem to get any complaints. On the rare occasion when it's questioned I just point them to the CP rate calculator where they can see that I'm not ripping them off.

Fortunately we are both selling items which are unique enough that we don't encounter all the problems that sellers of more common items face.

Gail, we really should get together to discuss the USPS option, the recent post of the comparison table really demostrates just how much could be saved by using this method over CP.

We should consider opurselves lucky they did not use the average temperature (degrees above normal) in Toronto as the scale to base their surcharge, with the temps this summer we would really be in trouble.

Ben
"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915

[javax.swing]

Canada Post doesn't care, but they do give us PowerSellers a nice discount plan which more than compensates for it.

[recped]

but they do give us PowerSellers a nice discount plan which more than compensates for it

No help for shippers such as myself dealing in under 1kg shipments 98% of which go outside Canada.


Ben
"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915

[petersburg]

Ship from USA

[magicpixiedust]

97.9 is the price in Alberta currently..i agree with you all...but lets stop "*itchin" and actually do something about it...there must be other revenues out there to use other than Canada Post....all we do is talk about Canada Post and their ridiculous prices and consistant increases...Canada Post loves this! If we actually stopped using them for business they would get the message....

[moltencore]

Ben - I was being sarcastic about being able to add a surcharge to my shipping charges on my eBay listings. (guess sarcasm doesn't translate well through the written word - thought the LOL would give away my intentions that it was a joke).

So you never get complaints about how much it costs to ship within Canada? unbelievable. I dread every new Canadian customer I get because at least 50% of them argue with me about the excessive shipping cost. (Westerners and fellow GTAers being the biggest complainers)

One guy in Vancouver (a repeat customer) argued with me EVERY time that it didn't cost $8.00 (p&p) to ship to him. (actual cost p&p to his postal code = ). He told me he was a seller and he "knew" what it cost. after I sent him the CP rate link - I never heard from him again. no great loss.

Another guy in Alberta (who bids on only Canadian artists) absolutely refused to pay the GST then left negative FB saying the item was not as described even though he never paid for - or received it. he has been kicked off eBay a couple of times and a week ago contacted me asking us to put "our" problems in the past because we have so many cool items he'd love to bid on. (BTW: not a snowball's chance in hell on that one!).

As for the USPS solution - Ran & I don't really think it's economically beneficial to drive weekly to the border (spending $20 bucks or so on gas and wasting approx. 6 hours of our time) to save $20 or $30 bucks (from what I'm seeing from that the CP vs. USPS price comparison chart).
Am I missing something? I just don't see huge savings by doing it just a stress inducing drive on the QEW.
Gail

[vesivus]

Hello Gail. I, too, "educate" many Canadians that it is more expensive to ship to Canada than to the USA. I've pointed them to various CP websites, and one even went to his local outlet to ask questions. He came back and apologized for doubting me and seemed to be in a state of "shock" over this.

I've met with both Purolater & FedEx reps regarding using a courier company, and they have told me that, BY LAW, they cannot charge less than 3.1x what Canada Post charges. BY LAW, with the defense being that there has to be a way to "protect" Canada Post from going out of business.

Ridiculous.

John

[rd1000]

Yes, they must charge 3 times the price on packages LESS than 500 grams. This is CP's monopoly power. And they fiercely protect it.

This is why they can get away with the rediculous policy of charging the 1 kg rate for any package over 2 cms thick within Canada.

I have read the comments on the CP discussion board with Kim. Believe me I understand the frustration, but CP will NOT change the policies. They have monopoly power, and I am sure the economists have done the calculations and the loss in shipping will be more than made up by the higher prices charged.

Canada Post has no regard for business competitiveness, customer relations or anything else. They are a corporation focused on profits, like it or not.

The idea that Kim suggested the new airmail policy regarding "paper only" has to do with international regulations, etc is laughable. It has to do with one thing - shifting lighter packages to the higher small packet rate. Plain and simple.

If you want to change things, I think we need to lobby politicians hard to try and remove their monopoly power. Fighting with CP issue by issue is a lost cause. They are not accountable to the public.

Kim sounds nice, and I am sure she will help if you have questions that you can't seem to find an answer for, but screaming at her to change pricing is futile.

As for the fuel surcharges, this was put in place so CP can raise revenue without having to get approval for price increases.

Rob

[tobyshitzu]

"ve met with both Purolater & FedEx reps regarding using a courier company, and they have told me that, BY LAW, they cannot charge less than 3.1x what Canada Post charges.'

This only applies to LETTERS(specifically letters, not letter size items) under 500 grams, only within Canada. Its so a courier can't cherry pick something like delivering bills in the GTA which would leave Canada Post only with the low density rural areas. The 3 times thing is if someone else wants to deliver letters within Canada they much charge at least 3 times CPs 50 gram letter rate. That is the only monoploy protection CP has, UPS' NAFTA complaint is that CP is using that to supsidize keep the courier rate too low. Coureirs can offer any rate they want on other then letters in Canada, and on anything internationally.