NEW Canada Post lettermail to USA Disaster!!!

[brya_fonta]

So all the talk of it being ok to put things in lettermail as long as they meet canada posts guidlines.

been doing this for awhile. and its great!! cheap shipping! easy shipping! fast shipping!!

well folks. today that has changed. this will impact many fast.

today my regular shipments. cost me money out of my pocket.  and maybe you soon too!!! be warned....

No notice anywhere. but the canada post employees have the memo

United States Will No Longer ACCEPT ITEMS in Letter mail or oversized lettermail.

Ouch! my roughly 6.00  shipment cost 27 today.  lost all my profits. and had to take money out of my own pocket to pay for it.

not trying to complain here. just a heads up to everyone, this memo went across canada.

i mail pretty much daily. so this is like today new.

more work for the post office ladies! more costs to usa buyers! and more profits for Canada post who cant guranteee $!#!! anyway

😜

any other canadian usa sellers experience the new RULES.

im assuming this was Made BY usa. because they said they will refuse items in lettermail. that are not declared!

canada post lady also stated this does not effect shipping within canada & i assume other internatinal countries. but i need to ask about other international countries......

Can't wait to see what small business is like in 2022!!!!!!

will they even exist!

[pjcdn2005]

I'm doubtful as to whether this is a new rule or not.  It has always (or has been for a long time) been a Canada Post rule that international lettermail and oversize lettermail was not for merchandise.  If  a Canada Post clerk was told by the sender that the US oversize lettermail they needed stamps for contained merchandise, the clerk would tell them that they needed to send it as a parcel.  If they haven't told you that previously, then you've been lucky.  Most who use lettermail to send items interntationally pre-buy stamps and use the outside mail boxes rather than going inside an outlet or post office.

The Universal Postal Union made a similar rule a few years ago but that didn't seem to cause any problems. I'm curious if there actually is something new from the USPS on this or if the clerk just assumed it was something new.

$6 to $27 seems a bit extreme.  It's $5+ to send an oversize letter 100 - 200 gram. If you were sending something that weight to the US it would be under $11 for a small packet or $19 for a Tracked Packet. It sounds as if you used expedited parcel.

[reallynicestamps]

Lettermail does not require you to take it to the counter.

The PO has a mailbox outside or nearby.  Use that.

If you don't need your paperwork stamped for tracking, your labeled parcels can go in the same box if they fit.

Less work for the PO ladies.

The machines don't care.

[pjcdn2005]

Here is the list from Canada Post of items not acceptable in US or International letter post.  The list isn't new and the rule you seem to be referring to isn't new. Yet people still use letterpost to mail these items so unless there is something else new that I'm not aware of,  nothing has changed.

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articles/letter-post/unacceptable-items.page?

[dinomitesales]

There is no "new" rule. I work for Canada Post.

International Lettermail (called Letter-Post) can only contain documents; adding 'goods' or merchandise automatically turns it into a parcel and therefore requires a customs declaration. This has been the case for many many years. If you've been sending goods through International Letter-Post at the counter then consider yourself lucky that the clerks at your post office didn't know the rules. The memo they are referencing is likely just a reminder that international Letter-Post shipments can only contain documents/cards - this reminder is sent to all post offices approximately once a year.

This being said, many people still choose to send their goods via International Letter-Post by simply purchasing and applying stamps in advance and depositing them in a street mailbox. Very rarely are things returned; the thinner/lighter your item is (i.e. the more it looks like a regular letter) the better chances of it being delivered without issue. I would hazard a guess that no country's postal system or customs agency has the capacity/ability to inspect every incoming letter in addition to all the parcels they receive; the chances of it getting caught and returned are small (but, of course, still possible).

[brettjet38]

"So all the talk of it being ok to put things in lettermail as long as they meet canada posts guidlines."

What talk? It was NEVER OK to ship goods via letter mail, ever...

There is no NEW rule, you were always breaking the LAW!

You cannot ship any goods via letter mail you were never allowed to, also all goods are commercial and you need to fill in the custom forms also...

You need to know the LAW before you can preach about rules!

Use Small Packets and adjust your listings accordingly.

[cumos55]

The most important thing to do is.......

Follow the rules..... with Canada Post... and... Elsewhere

[recped]

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@brettjet38 wrote:

What talk? It was NEVER OK to ship goods via letter mail, ever...

Not true, Canada Post had no restrictions whatsoever on the content of Lettermail (non-domestic) up until about 10 years ago (perhaps a bit less.....don't remember exactly).

The UPU has been working on removing merchandise from the Lettermail stream for the past 10 years or more. The UPU moves very slowly, even now not all member countries have adopted the policy.

[mrdutch1001]

I responded to similar thread on .COM board and will reiterate same here: This is nothing new/not a "new ruling/policy" ...this has been in place for many years but many sellers did not heed and continued to ship non-printed matter as lettermail....

and for those who are screaming "the sky is falling", they will need to adjust and adapt different shipping methods, the same as the rest of us did many years ago when it was originally set out by Canada Post that lettermail outside of Canada was for PRINTED MATTER ONLY!

[brettjet38]

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articles/letter-post/unacceptable-items.page?

Unacceptable items

Print this page

Items unacceptable for the Letter-post service include:

• Small packets
• Goods
• Film, audio, or video recordings (for example, diskettes, CDs, or DVDs)
• Unsealed self-mailers and envelopes
• Items prohibited by law or defined as dangerous goods in Canada or in the destination country (see Non-mailable matter or International destination listing for more information)

Items unacceptable when attached to a postcard include:

• Photographs
• Cuttings of any kind
• Fold-back sheets
• Other items that stick out or are in raised relief

And these have been the rules for over a decade, so what is your point?

So even if it was "only" 5, 10, or 15 years ago, it is IRRLEIVENT!

You ship merchandise via LETTER MAIL at your own risk and BTW is illegal.

They will soon seize "Unacceptable items" at customs and simply destroy them, or so I hear...

[byto253]

It is a dice roll and if it is a small item, the chances are it will go through. Some folks really push it though with max sized lumpy envelopes. My guess is if the machine is unhappy and pushes it out for review you will get it returned to you.

[universal-solder]

We shipped 15,000 letter mail items a year all across the world. Between 20g and 500g. Slowly we are shifting to parcels and ditch the letters, but only to a certain extend. The rate of returned items, due to not being parcels but letters, is about 0.2-0.3%.

The trick is to make sure your items are machine-processable and not rejected for manual processing. And we always put a CN22 label on the back of every international letter mail item, containing merchandise.

To make sure your items go through, follow Canada Posts' instructions about address and sender name location, font and formatting meticulously. 

It is not "the law" to not ship physical goods by letter mail, it is a policy. It is in place to make sure Canada Post can cash in on everything that is not a letter.

And the root of the entire problem is that Canada Post (like 80% of the Canadian economy) is still somewhere in the early 90s when eCommerce was something most people never heard of. Canada Post is lacking affordable small package options in the range <500g, <2cm and <5cm for a 5/8 CAD flat rate like they are common in Europe for decades.

The day will come (in the next 20 years) that Canada Post realizes that eCommerce has different needs than classic mailing options offer, and will adjust their tariff structure.

[brettjet38]

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Shipping-Letter-Mail-to-the-U-S/td-p/443565

This topic comes up every year...

...and for those who are curious, the https://www.upu.int/en/home Universal Postal Union is where all decisions are made about rates and who pays what, by country.

They just met recently and passed more goodies including making all goods shipped into "Tracked" packages from all member countries.  There are 4 variations of that plan on the table it seems...

As for Documents & Goods, all goods must be declared for customs no matter how you ship them, but rest assured the days of being able to use letter mail for goods is waning...2022-23.

After that, all "Goods" will have to use a "parcel" service maybe that is why Small Packets has that Bar Code and it only works in the USA on eBays site...

...testing the "new" system in the real world with the "help" of eBay.

[byto253]

When you put a CN22 label on a letter mail item, do you drop it in the mailbox?  Any you are paying lettermail postage?  

[zee-chan]

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@brya_fonta wrote:

So all the talk of it being ok to put things in lettermail as long as they meet canada posts guidlines.

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But it was never ok to put things in lettermail. The rule has always been that it's only supposed to be for documents, paper, greeting cards etc. Commercial products are always supposed to be sent via parcel services such as small packet air, tracked packet, and expedited packet. Sellers are taking the risk themselves when they ship commercial products with lettermail. 

[brettjet38]

You can put them in the mailbox with discount postage and the CN22 label, but this is going to be made "illegal" as they are planning on making ALL goods shipped into "tracked" packages and they will have to have a BAR CODE on the package, hence the tests being done with Small Packets USA and that UR000000000CA number, this is the future of all merchandise being shipped, it will reduce "Claims" from questionable Shoppers. It is planned to be in place by 2024, Africa included from what I have been reading.

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@byto253 wrote:

When you put a CN22 label on a letter mail item, do you drop it in the mailbox?  Any you are paying lettermail postage?  

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[bennettcollectibles]

Just dropped off 2 bubble mailers, one to Canada and one to the US.  the girl asked me if there was ONLY paper in the one to the US, and I said yes, it's a matchbook cover only.  And she said for lettermail to the US and overseas can now ONLY be paper, no metal, plastic etc.  Otherwise it has to go parcel.

This is strickly a money grab from  the post office cause their profits are down.

[marnotom!]

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@bennettcollectibles wrote:

This is strickly a money grab from  the post office cause their profits are down.

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As has been noted earlier, this is nothing new.  It's just being enforced more stringently now, and it's based on Universal Postal Union guidelines.  USPS used to make no distinction between international letters and packages, but this changed a few years ago.

If it needs a customs form, it can't be sent as a letter.

[reallynicestamps]

this is the future of all merchandise being shipped, it will reduce "Claims" from questionable Shoppers.

And yet the need for protection from such claims is very very low, no matter what our American friends may think. But  if you are so scared of society that you carry a handgun to go for a burger or to church you may not be able to think too clearly anyway.

The real purpose of course is protect home industry, to control imports,  and collect duty and taxes on them.  Which is hard to argue with on a society-wide basis, but tough on the individual.

[reallynicestamps]

Love the meme. I learned stuff.