$3.19 oversized bubble now being sent back Canada to USA!?

[hockey-card-inserts]

I am in Ontario, Canada. Seller of hockey cards for almost 25 years. NEVER have i had an oversized bubble mailer $3.25 cdn Canada to USA ever sent back if it met the oversized dimensions. They now want us CDN sellers to send this as small packet rate, no tracking either. I am so **bleep**- I called C.P. and lady had no answers. i called my local Shoppers P.O. outlet, where I send my mail and she said they are sending back all mail to USA in a bubble envelope so we can pay the $9.95 cdn to send it as a small packet, even though the dimensions fall under oversized rate. FYI- the cards i sell are cheap, almost always under $10.00 people in US will not pay $10.00 cdn for s/h for one or two cheapy cards; esp. if no tracking. They really do want to put us out of business. I will try to send a card or 2 in a letter envelope, without a hard top loader- and use a thinner/lighter less thick card saver instead, and wrap it in a letter sized plain paper.

[fergua3]

for me, it's not a matter of 'adapting' to then new rules, or more precisely the new enforcment of older rules.  This enforcement of package rates has effectively put me out of business,  poster-wise.

I still have an inventory of a few hundred, so i am selling them off, at this point mostly to recover costs, but with the large increase in postage i must now pay, profit is very low and not worth continuing with.  I haven't and won't be purchasing any new posters to sell.  Once my inventory is gone, that's it.  No point in raising my shipping rates, these posters are priced as high as they will sell for.

Used to be i could ship a poster to the US for 3.19, now i have to pay close to $9. because it is now being classified as merchandise and not letter post.  That's the only change.  Weight, thickness, dimensions, contents,  all the same.......just a different name they call it and  it costs several dollars more to ship.    I suspect there are many thousands of sellers who sell small, low cost items that can no longer use letter post that have similarilyl been put out of business.

That it's the UPU that makes the rules is irrelevent.  This is all on Canada Post.  When they started enforcing the rule, they could have introduced and new, lower cost service to give sellers like myself a reasonably priced option.  But nada.  Just a cash grab.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@fergua3 wrote:

for me, it's not a matter of 'adapting' to then new rules, or more precisely the new enforcment of older rules.  This enforcement of package rates has effectively put me out of business,  poster-wise.

I still have an inventory of a few hundred, so i am selling them off, at this point mostly to recover costs, but with the large increase in postage i must now pay, profit is very low and not worth continuing with.  I haven't and won't be purchasing any new posters to sell.  Once my inventory is gone, that's it.  No point in raising my shipping rates, these posters are priced as high as they will sell for.

Used to be i could ship a poster to the US for 3.19, now i have to pay close to $9. because it is now being classified as merchandise and not letter post.  That's the only change.  Weight, thickness, dimensions, contents,  all the same.......just a different name they call it and  it costs several dollars more to ship.    I suspect there are many thousands of sellers who sell small, low cost items that can no longer use letter post that have similarilyl been put out of business.

That it's the UPU that makes the rules is irrelevent.  This is all on Canada Post.  When they started enforcing the rule, they could have introduced and new, lower cost service to give sellers like myself a reasonably priced option.  But nada.  Just a cash grab.

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@fergua3 

I requested wayyy back when first with Tyler and followed by Devon to add the option for shipping tubes with eBay Labels. It's never happened. Not sure if it was ever added on the com side. And yes unfortunately they are no longer letter and instead parcel as soon as they figured out they fell off the conveyor and had to be handled by hand.  I do now know that GSP/eIS are unable to ship posters from my own past messy experience trying to purchase 1.

The rates with CP for anything crazy longish are super prohibitive. Forced many out of the game. Buyers want them in original roll. Not folded. Yes, you could add a handling charge to cover and go through process of explaining to customers on the why, but should you really have to. I have a few listings that are extra long. When I check the displayed rates all you can do is shake your head. In my case the rattle is getting louder by the second.

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/154767161633?shqty=1&isGTR=1#shId

USA shipping 😬

-Lotz

[mrdutch1001]

"because it is now being classified as merchandise and not letter post"...

Misc.  "Printed Matter" materials have have been classified as "Non-Letter" by CP  for many years now, but more so in recent years that letter mail classification is being more closely scrutinized...

"SOLD Merchandise" IS NOT letter mail,  no matter which way you want to twist the interpretations of CP's letter mail policies...

Letter mail does not need customs declaration, nor a value attached to it... but "SOLD Merchandise" has to be declared as "Goods" with its value ...

[fergua3]

yes i know, i've said all that in my posts.  Doesn't change the fact that they are charging far more to ship an identical item that qualifies in  WEIGHT AND SIZE for letter post.  They are labeling it Merchandise and so it needs a Customs form.  Super and that's fair and fine,  Customs form it is.  I stated above that the Customs form, while a nuisance, was not the issue i was having.  It's the sharp increase in cost of shipping for an item which is the exact size and weight as items that can ship for much cheaper if they were letter post.  There is NO justification for that, other than they want to hoover in more money.

Really surprised to see so many people defending CP.  Many of us are effected by this, yet many running to CP's defense.  It's no secret that CP is one of the most expensive postal systems in the world.  Their rates are far higher than many other nations, including a nation like Australia that is 70% the size of Canada and has less than half the population......ie large and sparsely  populated like Canada, yet manages to have very reasonable postal rates.  Why  not CP?

[mrdutch1001]

" It's the sharp increase in cost of shipping for an item which is the exact size and weight as items that can ship for much cheaper if they were letter post. :

and that difference in price has been around for many years already!

I know ...I have been selling magazines, craft books & pattern books for over 10 years!

You accept, adapt, adjust, and carry on OR throw in the towel!!

[marnotom!]

This “defence of Canada Post” is actually an explanation that this distinction between documents and merchandise is actually the result of Universal Postal Union policy. It’s not a Canada Post thing.

You may recall that many years ago, USPS made no distinction between international letters and small packets, referring to the entire shebang as Airmail or Surface Letter Post, with the packet-size items going into the same mailstream as letter-size ones.  Now we have First Class International letters and First Class International packages.

The intent of the UPU now seems to be to keep document mail separate from merchandise or “stuff” mail rather than separating international letters/oversize letters/small packets from the international parcel stream.

[fergua3]

i realize that, and i have said as much in my posts.  That is not the issue.  The issue is CP taking advantage of this fact to make extra bucks, by not offering a more reasonable priced 'letter mail sized' package rate,  and in the process putting a lot of sellers of small items effectively out of business.  Canada Post was created for the Canadian people, to provide reasonable postal service and rates to the public.  A postal service is fundemental and a cornerstone of human society...it's not some luxury that we should all be counting our lucky stars that we have.

[marnotom!]

You may recall that Canada Post tried doing that about ten years ago with a “Light Packet” offering. My guess is that standards have changed, and that “Small Packet” is now considered the budget service for international shipments and “Tracked Packet” is the standard service.

I agree that a good national postal service is vital to the economy of the country which it serves, but Canada Post, like many national postal services, has been put into the awkward position of having to compete with the private sector and to act like a private sector endeavour with minimal to no investment from its shareholders—i.e. taxpayers—if it hasn’t been privatized already. Remember the news articles from a few months ago about CPC’s precarious financial position?

[fh991586]

The 380mm long value has its fair share of use, as it contains the LEGAL paper size (14 inches). A lot of documents can be sent using that paper format (and it can get heavier faster than a one-page letter too)...

It's not because you never use it that it's irrelevant!

[reallynicestamps]

Worth mentioning here is that the cheapest Tracked domestic service is Registered Lettermail  and that, since there are no customs barriers between provinces, we can send appropriately sized merchandise as Registered.

It const $10.75 to Register a letter PLUS the postal rate. (99c to $5.89)

For bulkier shipments, look first at Prepaid Boxes.

And finally Regular and Expedited Parcel.

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/small-business.page?

Don't use Registration internationally, it's not reliable.

Tracked Packet USA is a Good Deal.

[dinomitesales]

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@fergua3 wrote:

well, letter post allows up to 500g.  Not too many 500g letters out there, so clearly they had other things in mind for being shipped this way.

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You'd be surprised how many people mail documents or correspondence that meet or exceed the 500g threshold while being nothing more than small stacks of paper.

Around tax time I regularly have accounting firms coming in and mailing out paper tax returns to people that exceed 500g and have to go as a parcel.

[reallynicestamps]

Not to mention that domestically, Letter Rate can be used for shipping goods, including books and dvds, which can push the weight limit.