eIS and the Lettermail "Problem"

[ecgt]

For years a large part of our business model has relied on shipping items such as DVDs, certain video games, comic books, CDs and other items that are eligible for Lettermail within Canada. Said items would be shipped  using Tracked Packet to the USA or Internationally.

The Lettermail method of shipping within Canada is extremely cost effective to the extent that many items are only competitive when shipped via Lettermail. 

Since eIS uses the domestic shipping on file when an international buyer places an order, we now have a problem. The eIS program requires that we use a trackable method. Lettermail is non-trackable. More than a third of our items only offer Lettermail as the domestic option.

We were enrolled in the eIS program on October 9 and made our first sale this morning (a Blu-ray). Unfortunately, the item in question offers Lettermail as the domestic shipping option. We charged $6 for Lettermail in this case. All of the tracked shipping methods available to us generally cost $18 or more for an item of this size.

We aren't willing to eat that cost, so we decided to cancel the transaction. This is not something we want to do because if we start cancelling transactions over and over it could lead to an account suspension.

We decided to check the eBay Shipping Label prices for the item before cancelling the transaction and were met with a potentially good surprise.

Shipping the Blu-ray from Halifax to the Mississauga hub via eIS is only $8 for Canada Post Expedited Parcel with eBay Shipping Labels for the item in question (in this case a parcel weighing 200 g in a 22 cm x 16 cm x 12 cm box). Knowing this, we are going to eat the $2 and give this a shot.

We checked to see what it would cost to ship a record using a record mailer (600 g in a 33 cm x 33 cm x 4 cm box) and the Canada Post Expedited Parcel price came up as $9.

The UPS prices were also less than expected, but were several dollars more than the Canada Post options in the tests we did.

If this is accurate, then it suggests that eBay and Canada Post (as well as UPS) have made deals on cheaper shipping to the hub and haven't made an announcement as of yet.

We realize that we are among the earliest invitees to the program. Has anyone else had a sale via eIS yet? If so, what is your experience in terms of shipping prices to the hub using eBay Shipping Labels?

[electronicsextraordinaire]

The other unfortunate thing for users of Lettermail to the EIS hub is that Canada Post has plants to stop using aircraft for domestic Lettermail. What had a 4 day delivery standard from Vancouver to Mississauga might start taking some extra days if/when it starts going ground instead.

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Letter Mail Delivery Standards: Canada Post will introduce flexibilities to reflect today’s lower volumes. The average household receives just two letters per week, yet operations remain designed for far higher volumes. By adjusting standards so that non-urgent mail can move by ground instead of air, the corporation will save more than $20 million per year.

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https://www.canada.ca/en/public-services-procurement/news/2025/09/government-of-canada-instructs-can...

[recped]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

Buyers will be able to choose between eBay International Shipping or your existing shipping policy.

So the BUYER controls how we ship?
That's a big change.

No change whatsoever, buyers have always been able to choose when multiple options are offered

The shipping price first shown to buyers in your listing page and search results will be the less costly of the two options.

Good PR, but a shock when the import fees are charged on the doorstep.

And leaving the Seller liable for the Trump Tariff, whatever it is that day. 

Why would there be import fees charged on the doorstep? This would only happen if one used a DDU service, anyone using DDU service right now is going to have big problem. Of course DDUto the US isn't even available via Canada Post or Stallion or ChitChats or.....

Buyers then have the ability to choose between your existing shipping policy and eBay International Shipping as they check out. "

Personally I would not give the buyer a choice.

Because we are already seeing reports of US buyers refusing to pay the Trump Tariff and either returning the item or the Seller being charged a foreign tax by the shipper.

Again, why would anyone on eBay ship to the US via DDU.

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[electronicsextraordinaire]

The other unfortunate thing for West/East coast users of Lettermail to the EIS hub is that Canada Post has plans to reduce/stop using aircraft for domestic Lettermail. The 4 business day delivery standard cross-province mail might start taking some extra days if/when it starts going ground instead. You'll get closer to Expedited Parcel speeds if you're lucky (2-8 days nationally). I wonder if banks might start printing their invoices and such in more than 1 place...

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Letter Mail Delivery Standards: Canada Post will introduce flexibilities to reflect today’s lower volumes. The average household receives just two letters per week, yet operations remain designed for far higher volumes. By adjusting standards so that non-urgent mail can move by ground instead of air, the corporation will save more than $20 million per year.

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https://www.canada.ca/en/public-services-procurement/news/2025/09/government-of-canada-instructs-can...

[recped]

If you don't want to use Lettermail to ship to the hub because it may in the future go by surface you need to also stop using Expedited Package which is also a surface service.

[dinomitesales]

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@recped wrote:

If you don't want to use Lettermail to ship to the hub because it may in the future go by surface you need to also stop using Expedited Package which is also a surface service.

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This. The most common domestic Canada Post service used by sellers is "Expedited Parcel", which is a ground/surface transport method.

The vast majority of the Canadian population won't see much difference in delivery times if the letters travel via surface vs air, unless you live very far off the beaten path. Maybe an extra day or two max if it has to go a long distance.

[rainbow71113]

I usually send everything I can with lettermail in Canada and the only city I saw with a HUGE delay was Toronto-I call it my lettermail black hole.....I've seen mail delivered to Vancouver in a quarter of the time it took a letter to get to Toronto from Halifax-now I've thought everything is by ground anyway so that doesn't really matter much seeing that statement about air travel.