Statement from the CUPW: More than 55,000 Postal Workers Officially on Strike

[dinomitesales]

This is a full strike, not a rotating strike. New mail will not be accepted, and mail in transit will be securely held until the labour dispute is over. Prepare accordingly if you haven't already.

https://www.cupw.ca/en/statement-canadian-union-postal-workers-more-55000-postal-workers-strike

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

Time to end my listings! Thankfully my most recent sale just crossed the border yesterday!

[dobo5250]

maybe we sellers at ebay should organize and go on strike --- fat chance -- eh -- 

[tarnvik]

Ended two listings that unfortunately had bids. Penalized by Ebay with selling fees based on lost sales.

Thanks Ebay for your support during a difficult period!

[ypdc_dennis]

Did you cancel the bids first, before ending the listing ?

[mrdutch1001]

am now on "Time Away/Vacation" both here on eBay and my other selling site...

 No outstanding orders...all have been successfully delivered...Whew!

Now back to "life" and its day to day chores & tasks that don't involve online selling.

[edubb101]

Hello,

Everyone is going to handle this differently which I completely respect.  For me personally I'm adjusting my handling times and then falling back on my customer service skills to smooth over any concerns from my buyer.  If the item is time sensitive or they are not ok with waiting for the labour stoppage to end than I simply can offer to cancel their order.  In other words I'm open for business.  We'll see how it goes.  

All the best

[38e_avenue]

This is now a news no. 1 on CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/news

I switched to ChitChats - I now will drive 8 km, instead of 800 metres. I am sorry for all the sellers who cannot switch to another carrier. Hopefully, the situation resolves quickly. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@38e_avenue 

I rely on walking/transit to get around. UPS/ChitChats are not viable options for myself and many others. Anyone affected by this situation will be taking a major hit the longer this goes on.

[byto253]

Dropped off 6 packages to Chitchats yesterday, and joked with the guys there that I understand they fully support the negotiating process without government intervention 😁   

I am using a combo of auctions that end on the same time and fixed listings with 3 day handling times so that I have enough items to justify the trip to Chitchats twice a week.   Most listings are for $30+ items, not bothering with lower value items until this is settled. 

[38e_avenue]

A funny update from ChitChats 😄

Update November 15, 2024

Starting today, November 15, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) has initiated a strike against Canada Post. There will be a complete shutdown during the strike, causing service disruptions and delays in shipments to many recipients across Canada. Canada Post will not accept any new mail, and all shipments already in the mailstream network will be held. Once the strike concludes, shipments will be processed and delivered on a first-in, first-out basis.

We understand how stressful this can be, especially with the peak season ahead, but there’s no need to worry! Start saving with Chit Chats today!

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Not specifically you, but if someone is in your situation where they live in an city with a Chit Chats drop spot but do not drive, Uber is always a reasonable option if you have the volume of sales to make it rational.

Extend the handling time to 5 days and do one drop on the same day each week. With Chit Chats, you can batch your packages in a shipping bag or box. So if you have say 50-100 bubble mailers or small packages, you can put them into cardboard boxes with a batch label. That way, when you walk into the drop spot, it takes all of 30 seconds to exit the car, drop the batches in the bin, and get back in the car. 

Uber allows multiple stops. I have used it before and made a planned stop at Chit Chats and then had it drop me off somewhere else I needed to go, or had it take me right back home. Again, someone doing this would need to have high enough volume to where a $15-$30 Uber ride might break down to a minimal handling cost when divided between the number of orders they drop off. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@ilikehockeyjerseys 

50 to 100 bubble mailers? You're killing me here!!! In my dreams!!!  🤣😂🤣

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

---

@tarnvik wrote:

Ended two listings that unfortunately had bids. Penalized by Ebay with selling fees based on lost sales.

Thanks Ebay for your support during a difficult period!

---

To be fair, the strike has been looming on and off for two weeks though and eBay did have numourous warnings to sellers, so listing auctions during this time was a risky business move that can't be blamed on eBay. Buy-in-now woud've been a safer choice of listing if you didn't have a backup shipping option.

[ricarmic]

@tarnvik  I think the lost fees is the least of the problem, I would have thought that would also create 2 bad defects as well, the defects "cost" will be worse than the selling fees. Do you see any defects from cancelling the auctions with bids yet?

[mrdutch1001]

Did you not have a backup plan for an alternate shipping method?

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

I understand if someone is just a casual eBayer and gets caught off guard. If I had a dozen listings of "garage sale" type items and only checked eBay when I received a notification, I would probably get caught off guard. For what is such a big news story, a lot of people didn't even know that Canada Post would strike until it actually happened.

For people who are knees deep in eBay enough to be on this message board, I'm surprised people were caught off guard. eBay has been very straight forward, offer additional services, extend your handling time, etc. We have known about the possibility of a strike for weeks. 

Granted, I understand people who decided to still risk shipping with Canada Post under the idea that it was better to continue to make sales and then (if) the full strike happens they could handle INRs if they happen. But I don't understand how it wasn't evident that there was a risk/reward trade off in doing that.

I am on the otherside of the coin where I was too proactive about editing my shipping services and I probably didn't need to change things up as early as I did. So I maybe lost a few sales that way. So I'm not trying to say that I'm an expert or handled things perfectly. I'm just surprised that people are surprised I guess. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@ilikehockeyjerseys 

Maybe something that is forgotten in all this is many of the Canadian sellers affected possibly sell a mixture of both large and smaller items. Those smaller items can go as letters. There really isn't a back up for that situation. And it's not like you can put only half of your listings on away and keep the rest visible. I guess you could move everything across the board to UPS knowing full well you would no sales for those items. But you would have buyers thinking under their hat why is shipping so high. Maybe because  they do that already.

[mrdutch1001]

for some lighter weight/smaller items, UPS is not so bad a choice as eBay's UPS discount rates are reasonable & it is not overly expensive ...so that option is doable if necessary...

[ricarmic]

I have the luxury of not depending on income from here now as much as I did in the past, so I decided to "time away" myself before Nov 3rd, however I almost got myself in trouble with auctions running past my time away start date, which of course means I'd still have items running and potentially selling after it. My point is that despite spending a reasonable amount of time on this board and the various discussions, Nov 3 still snuck up on me, the 7 days away is hard to keep in mind when one's executing the everyday chores.

I've long worried that the auctions are an ongoing risk if ever anything health or family wise causes me to have to time away my store unexpectedly, as I'd potentially have a number of auction items with bids that I couldn't close without punishment.

My understanding, which might be wrong, is that closing an auction early without bids doesn't harm us but closing an auction with bids was the same as an out of stock BIN situation and gave us the nasty defects. I've so far never had to close an auction with bids on it so I don't know what "options" we have to pick from in that situation.