Canada Post Possible Stike

[stanley613]

What happens now that orders are in the mail with a possible expected delivery date of September 30 and early October, what happens if not received there is no way of knowing whether these items will be received after strike is over.  Will eBay delay delivery date?

[momcqueen]

It is a contradiction for CUPW bosses to both claim that postal workers should be proud of the backlog of 600 trailers each containing an average of 2500 parcels that they've created (last Thursday) while insisting their actions aren't meant to cause harm to the general public (yesterday) within the span of less than a week. 

Who does CUPW think those 1.5 million parcels belong to? Canada Post management? 

No, they belong to the Canadian shoppers and online sellers like me. WE are the ones being harmed. No one else. Even the postal workers who don't get strike pay for missing a day of work (or two) while on rotating strike still have something to gain from this situation whereas ebay sellers and hundreds of thousands of other small business owners in Canada only lose.  Buyers lose. I'm losing sales, I'm falling behind in my bills now because my November sales are almost 20 per cent lower as a result of this labour dispute.

[around_again_records]

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@reveur* wrote:

I have closed most of my listings, and added UPS to my american ones. it's more expensive but at least they give you a 3 day delivery guarantee for their slowest and cheapest service.

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Please be aware that there might be brokerage fees added onto the price that you got from UPS.

I too checked into UPS for a parcel that I need to ship to USA. I was happily surprised when I saw that the price was about the same as Canada Post, but thought I better find out about Brokerage Fees, so I called the 1-800-PICK-UPS number and found out that with the UPS Standard shipping service there would be at least an $18.00 brokerage fee. The Customer Service rep could not give an exact quote - it could be more depending on the parcel, but 18 dollars was the standard fee. I also did not ask whether this fee would be billed to me or payable by the recipient of the parcel.

Below are screen shots of the UPS and Canada Post quotes for a 2 Kg parcel 37 x 29 x 13 cm
There is also a screen shot of UPS Brokerage fee information. Note that UPS Standard service is NOT on the list that has Brokerage fees built in. If you call the 1-800 number that is when you will find out about the brokerage fees.

I'm not sure your customers will be happy if they get an extra 18 dollars or more charged to them, and I'm not sure you will be happy with those rates if the 18 dollars is charged to you.

Just thought I'd mention it, it took me a lot of time navigating around the UPS site and making phone calls, so I thought it might help out

[reveur*]

Thank you for mentioning brokerage fees. I will reconsider now. UGH

So, an update on my parcels - it looks like all my parcels have finally been processed. It appears they were sitting in trailers in Toronto 8 total days before getting processed. These are expedited to USA parcels and one tracked international parcel to the UK. 

What has helped me in the interim- messaging my buyers with updates. They really appreciate this and most have responded with thanks. Communication will be key to getting through this holiday season as a seller.

I have also spammed Canada Post customer service and opened tickets on all my items. This may have also pushed or created some pressure, as I'm sure they will be flooded with delivery claims in the next few months.

Now, more business councils are calling for the government to step in and end this. But, who is willing to bet Justin will drag this on for as long as possible to avoid union backlash and support? I wish we had a PM who cared about small businesses and the public as much as he did with legalizing pot and looking good on magazines 😕

[ypdc_dennis]

Delivery time guarantees for UPS, FedEx and some other shippers are suspended for some of their services and the time allowed is extended for other services, starting this week until the end of the year.

-..-

[pjcdn2005]

Did UPS tell you that they would be charging a brokerage fee even when f there was no tax or duty on the package?  

[reveur*]

I decided against UPS because yeah they do charge an extra fee. Not sure about FedEx though. Latest news - Libs are going to do back to work legislation if nothing happens in "next few days" which could mean.. a couple days, a week, a couple of weeks, a month... etc. With our government, there is no solid stance on anything.

I support workers right to strike, right to a safe workplace, right to equal pay. I do NOT support greedy power hungry union heads who keep a country hostage and refuse to let their workers have a vote in negotiations just because they can and are allowed to do so by the government.

Packages coming IN from the states are making their way across the border however there are significant delays.  Packages that are being processed in Mississauga for international, are most likely going to be stuck in the "item being forwarded to international country" stage for the next several days too. One of my parcels from the states from a seller that normally gets processed in Mississauga shows as being processed in Quebec. So they are also shifting incoming parcels around the country.

The whole thing is a giant mess. I don't get why the gov is waiting when black friday shopping has already started. Are they waiting to see how much canadians buy on friday that needs to be shipped via canada post to determine a back to work legislation? i just don't get it.

[hlmacdon]

Government preparing to step in.

[momcqueen]

I heard. One of the MPs I emailed this morning wrote back and also the Business writer at the Free Press told me this afternoon. I'm hoping this shopping season can still be salvaged, I really am. 

[ricarmic]

Hmmm from the CUPW website:

Ottawa – Today, Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) members going to work are finding that the mail backlog has been highly exaggerated. The CUPW Toronto local reports that rather than the “hundreds of trailers” that Canada Post reported, they have about seventy – a backlog that can probably be cleared in a few days. Postal workers have seen one truck in London, six trailers in Hamilton, two in Halifax, 15 in Moncton, zero in Saint John and St. John’s.

[momcqueen]

Highly exaggerated? We all saw the pictures. I'm not certain that I trust the union assessment of that.

[ricarmic]

Thats my point who do you trust?

[momcqueen]

At this point, I don't trust anyone. All I know is what I see before me which is an undeniable 20 per cent reduction in sales during what is supposed to be my profitable time of year because shoppers don't want to risk not getting what they need in time for Christmas.

Even if the backlog has been exaggerated, shoppers still believe it to be true and they're NOT looking at my stuff on ebay as potential gifts because of it. That much, I know. I trust what I know and what I can see before me. 

Until public confidence is restored, it doesn't even matter whether the 600 trailers of backlogged mail is real or not: shoppers believe it is real and they don't want Little Johnny's toy truck being stuck with it. 

This must be set to right, I cannot afford to not sell at peak performance this holiday season. I'm writing letters and sending emails and talking to people and making small attempts to put pressure on the folks who can apply real pressure to make it stop. That's all that I can do and I will do it because I won't sit idly by and not complain while I get squeezed in the middle of this fight between warring factions: the union and management at Canada Post. 

[silverpinups]

Canada Post says, "more" the CUPW says, "less" and the posturing continues....

[momcqueen]

Exactly, it doesn't even matter which one is right because public confidence is lost. Until people hear, 'Canada Post is back at work and everything is fine' they're not coming around here to look at and buy stuff from small online sellers like you and me who use Canada Post.

It's not like the mega-retailers are suffering from this postal strike, they've got buying power with the couriers to get ridiculously low rates not available to you or me. It's only putting the squeeze on the little guys. I might be a little guy but I can make a lot of noise when I need to.

[silverpinups]

The Canada Post strike isn't effecting me from a selling point of view as much since 85% of my customer base is in the USA and probably most of them aren't really aware of what's going on in Canada.

What the Canada Post strike is doing is effecting my ability to deliver those goods to my US customers. 

[momcqueen]

Have you considered RunninRed? With your majority customer base being in the USA, you could bypass Canada Post altogether. This week, I got as far as half-heartedly trying to buy a label from USPS and was a step away from reserving my spot on the RunninRed truck before I decided to take Plan C instead. You might want to have a look at it if you haven't yet. It's my go-to for international packages if this situation gets any worse. 

https://www.runninred.com

We're both in Winnipeg. This might work for you? It seems reasonably priced but I haven't wrapped my head around the logistics of it yet. 

[momcqueen]

(RunninRed is the ChitChat Express of Winnipeg. Except not them, same business model.)

[momcqueen]

Okay, so there's another explanation, potentially, for the reason CUPW only counted 70 trailers: Canada Post has moved them to off-site storage.

"(Canada Post spokesperson Jon Hamilton) said Canada Post has had to rent space off site to store trailers while they wait for processing, which the union may not be aware of."

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/governing-liberals-give-formal-notice-for-law-to-end-canada...

Fun fact: Jon Hamilton was a classmate of mine at college. I haven't seen him since then.

[cumos55]

Canada Post could be using the principle of ...

Last In... First out

[hlmacdon]

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@momcqueen wrote:

It's not like the mega-retailers are suffering from this postal strike, they've got buying power with the couriers to get ridiculously low rates not available to you or me. It's only putting the squeeze on the little guys. I might be a little guy but I can make a lot of noise when I need to.

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Exactly why making noise as an individual works. When I am working as a large retailer, I could care less about a postal strike. I've already used my Canada Post contract to drive down my UPS contract rates and I simply move that CP business and any free/reduced shipping promotions to UPS and increase my rate of package insurance slightly to offset the statistically higher rate of damage with UPS for oversized shipments. As a large retailer with multiple freight contracts (we'll typically have a contract with every carrier although rates will be best with Canaada Post/UPS) my only business loss is a small percentage of vocal customers who prefer Canada Post delivery because a given courier's depot is X km further away. My inconvenience as a large retailer that isn't solely tied to CP (a terrible business decision if you are) is literally the two minutes of work it requires to deactivate one shipping API, send a note to customer service, and default my shipping promotions to another shipping API. Are margins effected? A few percent but easily covered by simply running some additional marketing campaigns with vendors for some over and above MDF funds, or I simply reallocate those marketing dollars Canada Post gave us (which does happen as an FYI, because really we need to spend marketing dollars to promote the cheapest service that consumers are TOTALLLLY unfamiliar with right?). Job done.