Canada Post Strike (Lettermail / Oversized Lettermail Options)

[dougieboygames]

A lot of my items I ship with Canada Post Lettermail or Oversized Lettermail. With the potential strike, what do I do with my listings? Is no other cheap shipping option in Canada?

Will buyers still be able to purchase said items, or will Lettermail not be an option during the strike?

Will I have to end all my listings that only have Lettermail shipping available?

Am I going to have to go through ALL my listings to ADD alternate shipping options?

This is the first time I may have to go through this strike and I have nothing setup for alternate shipping on ANY of my listings. I may have to place my store on vacation mode until the strike ends.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

If you are going to continue shipping lettermail during the strike, the best possible option would be to change your lettermail shipping to "economy" shipping. This will give you 15 business days to deliver it instead of 6 business days. That way, if there are rotating strikes you have more time to deliver the item before it qualifies for an INR. It also gives the buyer a more realistic shipping estimate. You can do this in you business policies page where you edit your shipping.

If there is a full strike or lockout, you may also want to consider extending your handling time to something excessive like 20 days. You could message a buyer after they purchase the item to let them know that it will ship as soon as the strike is resolves. If they decide to cancel, let them cancel. Otherwise, it ships when the strikes is over.

For people who have access to Stallion, that is an option that has rates fairly close to lettermail. It costs $6-$7 to ship to most major cities. With that said, you are likely to receive multiple orders from rural areas that they do not ship to or that they charge an excessive price to ship to. Because Stallion isn't integrated into eBay, there is no way for a buyer to know before they checkout that you can't ship to them. If you use Stallion, you may have to cancel a lot of orders. 

If you sell a high volume of items, a good strategy might be to do a mix of Stallion and Expedited Lite since in most cases the cost is similar. Extend your handling time. If the order qualifies for UniUni through Stallion, use that. If the order is to an area that only Canada Post delivers to, put it in the extended handling pile and ship it via Expedited Lite when the strike ends. 

Ultimately, there is no real substitute for oversized lettermail. There is no other service that you can send a 100g package for $2. The services that are close do not have integration with eBay, so you will run into problems where lots of orders simply do not qualify for the service. 

If you have UPS and Fedex available to you for pickups or dropoffs, I would consider adding that as a secondary option. Just make sure you use calculated shipping as their rates can vary dramatically. 

[mrdutch1001]

If no options for alternate shipping method a solution would be to put your eBay selling on "Time Away"...

[koolectablescanada]

I also use this option mostly and have put time away on. For my orders currently in the mail its tough to know what the outcome will be due to this shipping method . I've already received unhappy messages from customers. Hope it ends quickly! Buckle up everyone...

[patphotog]

Put your store on "time away"...this is the only option. 95% of my item are ship lettermail as well. My store is already on Time away and will stay like that until a resolution in the conflict. Do not trust ebay about protecting the seller from buyer negative review on lenghty shipping time. Do your due diligence.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Rather than time away, you could use extended handling time and proactively message customers to let them know that items will ship out when Canada Post resumes service. Basically, a soft shutdown since you will get less business and more cancellations, but it would still allow customers to buy things to ship at a later date.

[mrdutch1001]

I tend to agree that for many of us on eBay, there simply is no viable option to replace Canada Post rates for lettermail/oversize lettermail for within Canada and really nothing that compares to eBay's Tracked Packet service to the USA. I have ended most of my listings here on eBay and will wait it out for any items for which there is no viable shipping option. For a select few of my items, I can offer shipping options(Purolator/UPS) at a much higher cost than for my usual flat rate box rates within Canada and Tracked Packet for USA), but a lot of buyers simply are not going to purchase.... Purolator/UPS are doable within Canada for large city to large city but otherwise not so great and for shipping to the USA, well those rates are all over the place depending on city, state,etc and that's just the way it is with UPS...

I know there are many sellers who have found great alternatives and will not be switching back to Canada Post, but I for one will take Canada Post's ease of shipping over trying to work with an alternative that is not so user friendly,not competitive in rates, not competitive in destination points,etc

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

I put all of my items on "time away" now. There is no cheaper way to send envelopes or parcels, and since Ebay has Canada Post integrated into their system, it is pretty hard to continue selling. This years Christmas sales are a write off and there will be none for me. I put my listings to sleep and had to refund my last sale because the person would never get it. This strike might drag on for weeks or months, and when it is over we may be dealing with a brand new way of shipping in Canada, privatized.  If nothing else the prices are going to go up again when the strike does end.  It sucks for everyone selling on Ebay, but this might be the last of Canada Post as we have known it.