Canada Post Strike

[salvadord]

I am a little confused as to why eBay is still showing a "ship by" date for sellers in Canada, shipping via Canada Post.  First off, the suggestion that we update our listings to show a longer "handling time" is not realistic.  Most seller have hundreds, if not thousands, of listing, and they expect us to change those listings?

Second, since eBay is well aware that there is a postal strike with no pick up or delivery of mail, why are they not eliminating the "ship buy" until this issue is resolved?  Many sellers will not want to drop envelopes in mailboxes that are not being serviced, and often these mailboxes become overloaded.  It would be much safer to drop your mail off at a postal outlet, once the strike is over.  However, then a seller will be penalized for not meeting their "handling time" - "ship by" date.  Why is eBay not taking action to protect sellers from being penalized for not meeting shipping times?

I will be inclined to mark my sold items as shipped, even though they are not shipped, and once the strike is over, drop the mail at a postal outlet.

[cardcentral_ca]

This would deter people from buying, that is bad for business.  Extending delivery times behind the scenes is better.  

[cardcentral_ca]

I have never tried that coupoon.  Keep meaning to try it.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

You can change your listings in bulk either using the shipping policies and the batch listing editor. 

Top left of the screen where it says "Hi, Your Name". Drop down to account settings. Click business policies, then shipping, and edit your policies so they have an extended handling time. Depending on how many policies you have, this should only take a few minutes.

If you need to create a brand new shipping policy, you can do the above and then use the "reassign listings" button to move the listings over, or use the batch listing editor to change all the listing policies at the same time. 

[cardcentral_ca]

There will be a lot of unhappy Canada Post employees if a nation wide strike goes to or past Nov. 30.  I know I would be p*ssed at the union powers that be.  That is money they will never see again.  Or would take one very long time to recoup lost wages.

I honestly think it would be smarter to strike in the summer.  Last time they did the rotating strike this time of year, they were forced back to work a month later.  The mail was still getting delivered.

[cardcentral_ca]

You can say that the 'Buyer Asked To Cancel', as that is what happened.  The reason the buyer got that message is because they tried to cancel after the 1 hour window they have to request to cancel. 

[cardcentral_ca]

Why didn't you just tell her you would ship it when the strike is over?

[needsmorerobots]

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@intimewithmusic wrote:

It's not possible for us on this side of the line to meet our handling time if we can't ship. I've kept in contact with my customer in Ontario. She chose for me to hang on to the item and she would cancel the order.

She ordered it yesterday. No label has been printed.  I have a 2 day handling time & eBay says to ship before Tuesday. the buyer msg'd me and said "When I tried to cancel the order an eBay error message appeared. It said "It Is Too Late to Cancel This Order." It hadn't been shipped and no label had been printed. 

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My understanding is (at least if no label is printed), a customer has 24 hours from date/time of purchase to cancel the order. After that, they can't.

[flipistics]

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@needsmorerobots wrote:

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@intimewithmusic wrote:

It's not possible for us on this side of the line to meet our handling time if we can't ship. I've kept in contact with my customer in Ontario. She chose for me to hang on to the item and she would cancel the order.

She ordered it yesterday. No label has been printed.  I have a 2 day handling time & eBay says to ship before Tuesday. the buyer msg'd me and said "When I tried to cancel the order an eBay error message appeared. It said "It Is Too Late to Cancel This Order." It hadn't been shipped and no label had been printed. 

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My understanding is (at least if no label is printed), a customer has 24 hours from date/time of purchase to cancel the order. After that, they can't.

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I thought they had recently changed it to allow a buyer to cancel up until the time the item is marked as shipped?

[intimewithmusic]

Hi @cardcentral_ca @lotzofuniquegoodies 

  Thank you for the note @cardcentral_ca . My appologies for the confusion. Last night we were scrambling for solutions and after a message or 2 with Lotz the eBay forum's private messaging went down. See photo. It must have been a gliche but it lasted for awhile. As I couldn't finish the conversation there I tried his store which turned out to be closed so I finished our conversation here as a reply to his post. In retrospect I understand it may have caused some confusion. Sorry about that. 

   To answer you I had offered her the alternative you suggest.  If this strike drags on I may follow the direction of Lotz put my store on vaca.  In the meantime this is what I have in my store "About" section currently. Once again, sorry for any confusion....

"Notice Regarding The Canada Post Strike effective Friday November 15, 2024 and it's effect on our eBay orders;

Our time limit to ship out your order is 2 business days. After that we are penalized for late shipments.

We use Canada Post exclusively because they service our area and all of our buyers' locations. We like to offer the best service possible and do not normally have problems with loss, breakage or late shipments with Canada Post. For some buyers alternative couriers may be an option if they are in their service area however, the alternate courier's insurance, tracking and delivery times are not familiar to us at InTimeWithMusic. The excess volume caused by the strike and the seasonal rush may cause those couriers to be overloaded causing delays in delivery and their necessity to find secure temporary storage for packages. Canada Post has claimed their packages caught in this strike will be kept on hold in secure storage until there's a resolution.

ORDERS RECEIVED BY US BUT NOT SHIPPED YET:

Our first priority is to ensure your order is safe and secure. I have your order at the ready. The options for you are;

1. Cancel the order via your "My eBay" list of Purchases in your online account. The buyer will be fully refunded. This can be done if the item hasn't been shipped out and the buyer no longer wishes to receive the item. It will be relisted publicly.

2. I can HOLD your order here for you and wait until Canada Post resumes delivery. The seller and the buyer should confirm this choice via eBay messaging. The order will be temporarily cancelled and held here. Any payment made by the buyer will be fully refunded to them via eBay. The item will not be relisted. When Canada Post's delivery resumes the seller will notify the buyer their item is waiting to ship. Instruction will be given to the buyer on how to re-purchase via an eBay private listing. No one else will be able to make the purchase other than the original buyer.

3. ALTERNATIVE COURIER SERVICES: An alternate courier (UPS or Fedex )could be used. The buyer and the seller need to communicate ASAP to confirm this choice and that the buyer is serviced by the courier. We are unfamiliar with rates, insurance, tracking, quality of service or delivery times for UPS or Fedex. Generally their prices are higher than Canada Post. We do not know if they offer residential door delivery to your area or if you have access to their pickup centre. If an alternative courier is your choice please advise and I will do my utmost to get the answers for you.

Please let me know your choice of path during the strike. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused by Canada Post.

Thank you for your patronage and your patience!
InTimeWithMusic

[intimewithmusic]

Hello @flipistics and @needsmorerobots  ,

Thank you for your comments. Yes, you are correct.  To my understanding those are the new terms for cancelling. However we have possible human error or else eBay gliches to factor in to the mix AKA "Murphy's LAW"

 This is her msg from her 1st attempt to cancel. It was within 24 hrs of her ordering it and no label had been printed. 

    "I just tried to cancel the order but got the message "it's too late to cancel this order, please contact the seller."   My apologies if that is because I didn't do it earlier today! I only just got to my computer.Please let me know what's best at this stage and again, sorry for. my delay. thanks for the Jazz notes!"

She tried again the next morning and the cancel went through just fine.

[intimewithmusic]

You may want to check the update on Cancelling Orders. To my knowledge buyers now have up to the time of actual shipping or eBay label printing to cancel orders. That went into effect in October I think. 

[intimewithmusic]

Hi @pjcdn2005 

  " We are each responsible for our own business. If we cannot ship within our handling time than eBay expects us to either change our handling time or use an alternative service so that the item is shipped on time. "

I think Lotz was referring to a general banner advising potential buyers, particularly US and International buyers that Canada Post is on strike. It would help deflect the blame to CP instead of sellers.

Most of my customers are Americans and they have no idea we have a strike going on. So far eBay has only advised sellers of the strike. Only US dot com sellers have been offered special protections. I would agree with Lotz that a general banner about the strike could help. Possibly one will appear or possibly eBay may consider an advisory banner would be a negative impact on the Christmas customer.  I think the international buyers should know what is going on in Canada regardless. 

With respect to alternative couriers generally their prices are much higher than CP for low value shipments. Many eBay Canada sellers don't have access to 3rd party forwarders like Chit Chats. No one is going to want to switch to UPS if they have to pay up to a third more for shipping, drive long distances and stand in a line to drop off a $25 item only to lose money for the sale. To my knowledge none of these couriers offer lettermail so what alternative do those sellers get?

I think before the bulk of us change our handling times or start adding couriers with no knowledge of their idiosyncracies we are just going to go day by day and see if this strike is brief. In the meantime I hope eBay will address the Canadian sellers and not just the USA sellers as Lotz has pointed out with his link. I think it's the Canadian seller who should have ebay handling and delivery protections. If the strike continues and eBay expects sellers to add 20 or 30% to their shipping via UPS or Fedex as you suggest possibly some sort of subsidy would be worth considering to keep "low value/high freight ratio" items worth selling.

There is also the problem of sales stats crashing when sellers stop listing and tweaking their stores. It takes a long time to recover from the slump in store sales for even a dormancy lasting 1 week. Even if the strike ends quickly unless sellers keep their store active via listing or at least draft accumulations they could miss out on the entire Christmas rush.

[intimewithmusic]

Hey folks, all of this posting might be redundant. 

 If you follow the link this 2018 CP strike the OP received 600 replies over 31 pages! 

PS These sample comments are anonymous but many of us are in the list. Are you? LOL

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Original Poster
"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?"
600 REPLIES
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This looming postal strike is really throwing a wrench in our plans here in Canada.
We are closing our store on Friday even though our postal carrier advised us nothing will occur til after July 8.
Who knows what will happen.
See you all soon
Let's enjoy our break !
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Don't have a clue but thanks to the uncertainty with Canada Post I too put my store on vacation today. Too bad I have actually had a pretty good June for sales. Hope the strike/lockout does not last too long as we still have to pay the fees but no sales!
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Relax... Business as usual.
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I plan to alter nothing until I hear there are firm plans for a full strike or lock-out, and I certainly would not have turned away a 25-item sale to a Canadian buyer; are you sure you wouldn't rather create an account with a courier than say goodbye to a $500+ (guessing) sale? Even if there is a strike or lock-out it doesn't mean that my world stops turning.
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Store was put on vacation... September 17 at 4:40 PM Winnipeg time.
Not happy... with no sales..... but not traumatized with many parcels in the mail.
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Just had a question from someone, who lives in Toronto and may want to buy up to 25 books .
I suggested that we wait and see what happens with the possibility of a strike.
My store will be going on vacation on September 19.... most likely at HIGH NOON
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While the workers were on strike in 2011, the mail kept moving because those were rotating strikes, often as little as a single shift. It was nerve-wracking but workable. The mail didn't stop until management locked out everybody. If you think Canada Post rates are high, compare them to any courier. And remember, those couriers pick and choose where they are willing to deliver. If they get a shipment for somewhere that they are not going to make enough profit to service, they sub-contract to a cheaper shipper....And that shipper is Canada Post.
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For me it was the 2011-2012 strike.... and the uncertainty of two months, July and August in 2016.... and it will be much easier to deal with this situation in 2018. Things were not perfect, but it was easier to put the store on vacation than suffer through the day-to-day occurrence of sales and the possibility of a strike in 2016. Each Canadian seller that uses Canada Post must make their own choice. Vacation time will give me time to list, list and list more inventory... and then there is also a lot more to do
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Is Canada Post an essential service?If the answer is YES... then if the government declares Canada Post to be an essential service... this will mean no strike in 2018 or at any other time in the future..Then will come the question of privatization....... we shall see.
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Click here for the other 31 pages of posts! 
https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Canada-Post-Possible-Stike/td-p/409045

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@intimewithmusic 

Interesting that post 601 mentions health & safety. If you go thru the guts of the current dispute and what is being mentioned on the news, it's still a concern. 

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Canada-Post-Possible-Stike/m-p/413711#M100329

[intimewithmusic]

Hi @lotzofuniquegoodies . I think you may have quoted the number 601 by mistake as that is the total in every post. Your link takes us to Page 23 which covers the mid 445 numbered posts addressing health and safety.

So many things have changed since 2018 that add severity to Canadian eBay sellers with this 2024 strike. 

Two big changes I can think of that weren't part of ebay life just 6 years ago;

1. Todays reliance on eBay by seniors, work from home folks and others using it as a side hustle to offset todays massive cost of rent and food wasn't as dominant then as it is now.

2.  The algorythm changes made by eBay over the last two years is forcing sellers to keep their stores very active. It 2018 the well known podcast "Scavenger Life" described selling on ebay this way: "It's like a huge pipe you stuff collectibles in and money pops out the other end. List it and forget it."

With the 2018 strike the worst that would happen is you lose sales during the duration of the strike. With ebay's new algorythm, if you put your store on vaca and stop listing and other activity mid strike, your store will go dormant. The algorythm will forget you. We've all probably experienced this already.

When the strike ends it will take weeks of listing, end/sell similar, updating item specifics etc or whatever it is you do to tease and stimulate the eBay algorythm into recognizing your store again. There is no more "list it and forget it". Of course the lag will differ from seller to seller due to niche demand but there will be a lag which could ruin what's left of the Christmas rush.

My business plan isn't seasonal but tomorrow I'm starting to build a bank of unlisted drafts until I see if this looks like it could continue.  Once there's a sign of it ending I'll schedule the drafts. Things have changed. 

[femmefan1946]

Friday afternoon
leaving my listings open, hoping that I get very few sales over the next week

Monday afternoon.
Welp, that didn't work.

Poot.

drop off when the strike is over. Be prepared to stand in line!

Why?
If you have a printed label, you can drop the parcel into the nearest mailbox. You already have the receipt.

You might want to wait until just after the marked pickup time, because the box is likely to be very full
Or some Post Offices may do what mine does at Christmas and have a cart for parcel dropoffs so businesses (and observant private senders) can avoid that sweet old lady who can't believer there isn't a special rate for her Christmas cards and hasn't been since 1963.

[38e_avenue]

How is the Canada Post strike affecting you? The Globe and Mail wants to know...

[pjcdn2005]

@intimewithmusic 

In the meantime I hope eBay will address the Canadian sellers and not just the USA sellers as Lotz has pointed out with his link. I think it's the Canadian seller who should have ebay handling and delivery protections.

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If you are referring to the link below that Lotz posted there are no extra protections mentioned there for US sellers that I can see.   That same protection always exists for EIS sellers.  And both .ca and ,com sellers always have protection from a late delivery claim if they have proof of acceptance.

As you said, we can't mail within our regular handling time if our only option is CANADA Post and I'm not sure how eBay will handle a late delivery and a late shipping time.  Hopefully there will be some leniency but it's always best to be proactive and pre plan as best we can. My guess is that they expect us to figure out how we can work things in each of our own businesses. I suppose if the strike goes on for a while they 'might' come up with some perks but I am not counting on it. 

As far as a banner for buyers, I also wonder if it might serve as a deterrent for sales but perhaps a deterrent is better than having a buyer make up their mind to purchase  an item and then finding out there may be a problem.  Thats one of the reasons I choose to close for now as most of the alternatives for my items sent via lettermail  aren't realistic for me to use.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/Canada-Post-Strike/ba-p/34781531

[intimewithmusic]

Hi PJ,

Thanks for the response. According to your "solds" you have only 1 sale dating back to August 6. If that's an accurate  representation of sales closing your store at Christmas time is probably your best choice. Of course the stakes are different for everyone.

Rather than post the link here is the content of the link as it was posted by eBayUSA on Nov 15.  FOR YOU AND FOR THE REST OF US I hope this answers your question. 

"TO USA SELLERS USING THE INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING PROGRAM"

11-15-2024 02:19 PM
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) are on strike as of November 15, 2024. This will disrupt normal delivery schedules throughout Canada.

If you use eBay International Shipping, you are automatically protected from late or no delivery claims and your seller performance standards and service metrics won’t be affected by international shipping. Any negative or neutral feedback from handling during international transit will be removed from your account.

As eBay International Shipping has the capability to pivot and leverage multiple carriers around the world, eBay anticipates only minor disruptions to eBay International Shipping deliveries in Canada at this time.

If you have already shipped or are shipping directly to Canada, you are protected from late delivery claims as long as you meet your stated handling times.

We are continuing to monitor the situation and will adjust estimated delivery dates for Canadian buyers as needed.

You can monitor updates on the Canada Post website.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay.

The Shipping Team " :end quote

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   As well as the protections it appears eBay US is automatically diverting American shipments to Canada on behalf of their sellers via UPS or Fedex without any seller intervention. eBay Canada hasn't made a statement since Nov 12. They instructed Canadian sellers to do it themselves with no mention of protections. Due to complications many Canadian sellers are closing their stores or biting the bullet.

I don't know.  am I misinterpreting this?

   It feels like more unfair competition between the two platforms similar to the US access / Canadian exclusion to the German market via the ISP.

....

"eBay International Shipping has the capability to pivot and leverage multiple carriers around the world, eBay anticipates only minor disruptions to eBay International Shipping deliveries in Canada"

[mrdutch1001]

the days of "fairness" between eBay.CA and .COM disappeared many,many years ago already, and .CA has been shafted ever since,(which is why I have been saying for many years now that.CA should be eliminated and Canadian sellers allowed to freely sell on .COM without consequence...

but no, we will continue to be treated second-rate and will continue having to work with a site that has been "broken" for years, with NO fixes intended/forthcoming or any such "improvement", as eBay gives ZERO priority to .CA...