Potential significant letter mail increase coming in January....

[ricarmic]

From 99c to $1.24 for domestic, I believe I saw somewhere that US and International were increasing as well, hopefully not by 25% too!!!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-post-stamp-price-increase-1.7316229 

[marnotom!]

Looks as though Royal Mail has a 22% increase in the price of a domestic stamp coming down the pipeline pretty quick:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvge8yn77rzo.amp

These price increases are probably part of a bigger trend that will see most major postal systems boosting their letter rates.

[byto253]

Any thoughts is the Tracked and Small packet rates will be increasing at the same time? 

My gut is that they are fairly disconnected from the letter postage rate as they get tweaked a good amount because of market competition. 

[reallynicestamps]

At one time Canada Post had to have the first rate for Letter Mail and the price of registration okayed by Parliament.

Since CPO became a Crown Corporation and not a government Department in 1974, this information may be slightly out of date.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

For those who do not use stamp dealers, Costco and Rexall sell discounted stamps (at least in Ontario). Costco sells rolls of 100 at 95 percent off everyday. Rexall marks them down to 90 percent periodically, but limits you to 4 sheets per person (take the entire family?).

Depending on your cash flow, interest rates, etc - it might be worth stocking up before such a substantial increase. 

[doc_scribe]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

At one time Canada Post had to have the first rate for Letter Mail and the price of registration okayed by Parliament.

Since CPO became a Crown Corporation and not a government Department in 1974, this information may be slightly out of date.

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My understanding - admittedly anecdotal and sidebar to other topics discussed with CP counter staff - the crown corp's primary legal responsibility is to provide lettermail service to all communities/regions nationally. I never got the impression that specific rates were still subject to parliamentary approval, other than possible percentage caps per annum.  However, since this rate increase will be at least 20%...I dunno...new territory.

And what about its impact on the cost of oversized letters, which many of us use for listings offering Free Shipping???

[ricarmic]

I think that tracked and small packets rates will go up at the same time, they've never missed an annual increase in the parcel rates for as long as I can remember 😞

[ricarmic]

I also wonder how the POs will handle the proliferation of counterfiet stamps, the UK has produced the "bar code" stamps which were intended to stop counterfeiting and reuse from happening, yet I saw in a recent article the UK bar code stamps are being counterfeited as well.

The counterfeiters are getting very good (supposedly from China). At some point that is going to cause changes or increases as well, if not now?

[fergua3]

My understanding is that domestic and international letter rates charged by CP are still controlled by the gov't.  The type of big increases happening in January are not unusual,  given that the rate increases are infrequent....last one was about 4 or 5 years ago.  Next one will be in another 4 or 5 years no doubt.

Package rates are not gov't conrolled and increase yearly, usually around 2-5%-ish.  This year may be a bit higher due to the higher inflation we've been seeing.  The only year we had a bigger rate increase on packages was when they added fuel surcharges to international package rates.  The basic rate increase was the same but the fuel surcharge on top of that made it overall a much bigger price increase for that year.

[marnotom!]

The last round of price increases for parcels (domestic and international) and small packets took effect almost a year to the date.

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/doc/en/business/2023-parcels-prices-ooc.pdf

[reallynicestamps]

The counterfeits are now being advertised on Facebook from what pretends to the Toronto's First Post Office (which is a real thing).

The comments vary from saying they are counterfeit- with links to news stories- and robotic responses from "customers".

[byto253]

True, an increase can be expected.  I am guessing that it would be harder to up packet rates by 25% in one shot because of the competition in the parcel area.  ...And I am going to cling to that!!! 😎

[dinomitesales]

The proposed 25% increase in domestic Permanent stamp rates would be accompanied by an across-the-board 25% increase on all Lettermail and Letter-post rates. They are really hurting right now to do this, especially since they just raised the stamp prices 4 months ago. They will now have to reprint all the (non-permanent) stamps with new postage prices for the second time in eight months which is not a cheap undertaking.

There is typically a rate increase in September but it was pushed back to January this year, so if this stamp hike gets approved you'll see postage prices increase around the same time as stamp prices.

[marnotom!]

I have a fuzzy memory of the price of a First Class domestic stamp going up from 17 to 30 cents in 1980, an increase of more than 75%. Just over a year later, the post office became a Crown Corporation.

[kawartha-ephemera]

CP has sent out several emails outlining why their usual September parcel rate hikes are not happening this year. They are in the midst of transitioning their system to cloud based infrastructure, the implementation (provided by SAP) has been delayed til 2025. Apparently they cannot rollout rate increases in the midst of the transition, therefore no parcel rate increase other than Holiday surcharges until 2025. 

Excerpst from email text.

Shifting the implementation date
We reached out earlier this summer to inform you that the implementation date for our systems upgrade changes will be shifting from September 3, 2024, to 2025.

Canada Post continues to perform critical systems testing to ensure a smooth transition for your business. We will contact you later this fall with an update on precisely when the changes will come into effect.

Price changes for parcel services, originally targeted for September 3, 2024, will not come into effect until the new implementation date.

[flipistics]

The government should just accept that Canada Post needs to be subsidized. Almost every other major country in the world does this, and for good reason. They're mandated to serve all Canadians, even on the routes private carriers won't touch because it isn't profitable for them. Of course they're going to either run at a loss, or drastically impact people in remote communities who rely on them by charging extreme rates.

[reallynicestamps]

They will now have to reprint all the (non-permanent) stamps with new postage prices

Not really.

Most of the non-P stamps are produced as "commemoratives" in relatively limited numbers.  And a lot go to collectors.

Even there most pay international rates.

The value of new non-P stamps would have to be changed, but that is a relatively minor matter.

My Unitrade catalogue is 2019, but the last set of stamps with denominations are from the "Far And Wide " booklets # 3071-3078.

#3071-3075 are P stamps.

The other three pay US and International rates ($1.20/$1.80/$2.50). These remain valid, but we'd need to add postage to pay 2024 rates.

And there were about 30 more P stamps issued that year.

Canada has never demonetized any decimal currency stamps . Actually it is still legal to use Newfoundland stamps- part of the deal when they entered Confederation in 1949.

At any rate, if you use stamps at all , it would be worth buying quantities at the current 99c face (or at a discount) since they will have an immediate increase in value come 2025.

Just don't buy them through ads on Facebook.

Stick to PO's and drugstores -- plus eBay sellers you know and trust.

[reallynicestamps]

a fuzzy memory of the price of a First Class domestic stamp going up from 17 to 30 cents in 1980,

Yes.

And that was when the first non-denominated stamps were issued, because the PO didn't know how much they would be allowed to raise rates, and they desperately needed stamps.

The "A" stamp.

But unlike the "P" stamp, it remains valued at 30c.

[reallynicestamps]

This might be the place to mention that for the past few years, Canada Post has been giving one free domestic parcel shipment weekly in October to holders of Solutions for Small Business accounts.

If they do this again this year, and you can't use them all, there are women's shelters in the Territories which desperately need blankets and linens (and probably children's snow suits) which are very expensive to buy there, but cheap here.

[dinomitesales]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

They will now have to reprint all the (non-permanent) stamps with new postage prices

Not really.

Most of the non-P stamps are produced as "commemoratives" in relatively limited numbers.  And a lot go to collectors.

Even there most pay international rates.

The value of new non-P stamps would have to be changed, but that is a relatively minor matter.

My Unitrade catalogue is 2019, but the last set of stamps with denominations are from the "Far And Wide " booklets # 3071-3078.

#3071-3075 are P stamps.

The other three pay US and International rates ($1.20/$1.80/$2.50). These remain valid, but we'd need to add postage to pay 2024 rates.

And there were about 30 more P stamps issued that year.

Canada has never demonetized any decimal currency stamps . Actually it is still legal to use Newfoundland stamps- part of the deal when they entered Confederation in 1949.

At any rate, if you use stamps at all , it would be worth buying quantities at the current 99c face (or at a discount) since they will have an immediate increase in value come 2025.

Just don't buy them through ads on Facebook.

Stick to PO's and drugstores -- plus eBay sellers you know and trust.

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I'm referring to the SingleStamp/US/Oversized/Int'l stamps - these need to be reprinted with new denominations for a second time in eight months and distributed to every post office in Canada. Canada Post also needs to recall all of the (now) out-of-date $1.15/$1.40/$2.09/$2.92 stamps from every post office in Canada. There is a significant cost associated with doing all of this.