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Canada Post Rates Rant
So I have this book that I was going to ship to Toronto. Here are the specifications:
Weight: 300 grams
Length: 210 mm
Width: 135 mm
Height: 25 mm
Shipping from Vancouver to Toronto via Canada Post Regular Parcel is $10.34 with a delivery standard of 5-10 business days. I thought that was grossly expensive for a very light, average-sized paperback novel. So I checked some other quotes:
- Shipping from Vancouver to Florida via "Small Packet USA Surface" is only $6.65 with a delivery standard of 6-12 business days. It is both cheaper and barely slower than Canada Post's Regular Parcel service.
- Shipping from Vancouver to Florida via "Small Packet USA Air" is only $7.90 with a delivery standard of 6-12 business days. It is both cheaper and barely slower than Canada Post's Regular Parcel service. I would expect that this Air Mail would be closer to 6 days and the surface would be closer to 12.
- With FedEx Ground from Vancouver to Toronto it costs only $12.48 with a 4-day delivery standard (note: with a FedEx account it would be even cheaper). Only slightly cheaper than Canada Post's Regular Parcel, and a far better delivery guarantee.
Trim the package down a bit, to a height of just 20mm (instead of 25g) and a weight of about 250g (instead of 300g), about the size of another book I have here with me, and the price becomes only $2.49 from Vancouver to Toronto with Canada Post Lettermail and $2.99 to the US with Canada Post US Lettermail or $3.96 to the US with Canada Post US Light Packet. The prices suddenly change drastically even though the weight has barely changed.
Here are my observations:
- Why is shipping to Florida cheaper than shipping to Toronto? I don't see how that can ever make sense, unless of course it crosses the border in Vancouver quickly and gets handed off to USPS and they are far cheaper than Canada Post. I wouldn't be surprised as I have read that USPS is much cheaper. Is Canada Post justified in having rates higher than USPS? If they are sending the package by truck, it could be most costly to drive to Toronto than to drive to Florida. Unless of course they drove to Toronto via the US :-)
- Why is FedEx Ground with a 4-day delivery only 21% more expensive than Canada Post's 5-10 business day standard? Either FedEx Ground is highly efficient, or they are not charging enough, or Canada Post is highly inefficient or charging too much.
- Why does reducing the package's volume by 20% and the weight by 17% lead to a 76% reduction in price? This does not make sense at all. Normally you would expect a letter and a small parcel to both have some fixed cost associated with the handling that needs to be done. So let's assume a fixed cost of $0.10 for the letter and $0.10 for a parcel. Let's say the letter weighs 0.1 kg and a small parcel weighs 1 kg. There should be some variable cost to send the package that is proportional to the weight to transport it. Let's say $1/kg. So the letter's variable cost is $0.10 and the parcel's variable cost is $1. So the letter costs a total of $0.20 and the parcel costs $1.10. The parcel weighs 900% more but it costs only 550% more. This makes sense, because of the fixed costs with each item. In my example, a package weight increase of 20% led to a cost increase of 315%. Doesn't make any sense to me. Either the letter is costing them more to ship than they are charging or they are overcharging for the 300g parcel.
- I find it interesting that it is cheaper to send a 300g, 25mm book to the US than it is to ship to Canada, but for a 250g, 20mm book it is the other way around.
I think what we need is something like the small packets service in Canada. We also need some consistency in the rates. They are so many oddities and contradictions in the rates as I've pointed out above.
Some other links:
- David Grant's blog
- 38150 reads
That's a long blog about one book to mail. Maybe whoever you are sending it to should just buy the book.
I wonder how much it will cost me to send a t-shirt and a card to Korea? ok goodnight
Actually I have a scale right here and I'm about to go to bed so I just took off my X-Large t-shirt and weighed it. Looks to be about 200g, so it could be between $5.35 and $7.30 with the International Small Packets service. Actually for that price you can ship up to 250g in a 30x30x30 cm3 box to Korea. Which makes me even more irate that it costs over $10 to send a tiny (by comparison) 300g package to Toronto!
I'm not shipping the 300g book though, just a 250g one which is cheap (as I mentioned half way through my post). The 300g was different book I had handy. I was curious what a slightly larger book would cost and was very surprised by what I found.
There are many people that are discontent with Canada Post and not just you
It has become a power base for Canadian Union based employees and they need your support so they can live in a style you have become accustom to
Oh, GOD! I have just spent 4 days wading through all the charts and pdfs on Canada Post's website, and I have discovered all the same things you did . . . just now found your old blog post. I used to ship internationally from the States and am now in Western BC wanting to continue this type of shipping. How maddening! It boggles me that there is not comparable Packet service within the country. Thanks for this post of yours. I feel slightly better that I'm not the only person freaked out by the nonsensical rates system!
Neph
Yeah, it is totally nonsensical. I'm glad someone read it and found it informative. I should probably summarize it in some HTML tables or something to make it a bit easier to read.
most companies have inconsistencies in their business. so are we picking on canada post because its government associated or because they deserve to be picked on?
i agree their rates are high, and service seems to depend on the mood the postal employees are in the day your parcel passes through their hands.
however that seems to be the same with most service oriented businesses. try getting the attention of sales staff in any big box store when the supervisors aren't around....good luck! too busy discussing boyfriends, girlfriends, parties etc.
everyone is afraid to complain about meals in restaurants due to media coverage about what happens to your food when you send it back!
seems to me there are problems in every industry.........
"are we picking on canada post because its government associated or because they deserve to be picked on?"
No one is "picking on" anyone. Only raising valid points about their inconsistent/non-sensical rates. No, the fact they they are a publically-owned company has no bearing on my comments.
"i agree their rates are high"
I never said their rates were high, I was pointing out differences in their rates. On the whole, Canada Post is cheap, it is the cheapest way to ship in Canada, after all, for parcels, and they are the only one that does letters.
"service seems to depend on the mood the postal employees"
I never mentioned service...but whatever, bring that up if you want. Their service is great, I had one thing break but I was covered by their insurance and the lady that handled my claim was awesome.
"seems to me there are problems in every industry"
Maybe there are problems in every industry, maybe there aren't...so...what?
Do you have ANYTHING to say about the things that I actually addressed in my article?
My only complaint about Canada Post service is I wish that all the employees where required to have basic keyboarding skills. Often representatives use one finger to type postal codes and weight info, it just drives me nuts. It is terribly inefficient and if they learned to keyboard properly it would increase their productivity immensely.
I think the word you are looking for is 'typing'. The 'keyboard' is a relatively new invention. Typing has been around for over a century.
I believe Canada Post may have higher prices then USPS due to the price of gasoline to drive a truck to Toronto as opposed to USPS driving a truck to Florida with their prices. Also, remember Canada's highway systems are not as advanced as the US and many areas of Canada are much more mountainous then the US. As well, it is difficult to compare USPS and Canada Post as equals, I believe, as per their website, USPS has yearly revenues of $70 billion. I'm not sure what Canada Post is, but I'm certain it's not even in the same ball park considering our population is 10% that of the US.
I also am not sure what the prices are to mail an item, but weight cannot be the only factor. If a very large box is mailed and it weighs only as much as the box, how much will Canada Post charge to ship this package across the country? $10 or $20 or $30. That's absolutely ridiculus. They would lose so much money, it wouldn't be worth having a postal system at all.
I would not be so quick to defend Canada Post. I realize this is an old blog, but it is fitting, in that I just sent Canada Mail an email on this very concern.
If it was strictly a matter of distance and roads, then why on most shipments, can a US business ship a parcel to anywhere in Canada, cheaper than a Canadian business can ship the same package. to the same address in Canada. Also the discounts that Canada Post gives to business customers are ridiculously small, when you factor in that a typical business can provide more revenue in one day for Canada Post , than a regular "citizen" will provide in one year. Also about the whole volume and weight thing, compare this little example:
Burnaby BC to Calgary Alberta (distance 411 miles, 85g package, 6"x4"x1" size) (Tiny weight and volume) = $9.73 (before small discount)
Burnaby BC to New York, USA: (distance 2416 miles, 349g package, 10"x8"x8") (Larger weight and volume and distance) = $8.90 (before small discount)
Conclusion: Package to New York: traveling a distance 6 times greater, weighing 4 times more, and a cubic volume 26 times greater) = $1 less
Yes, you can purchase pre-paid envelopes to slightly lower the cost, but they are only price effective on products under 1.5 inches in thickness.
I am selling prints on ebay. The prints are all the same and I ship them in mailing tubes that are all the same. The weight and dimensions of the parcels are therefore all the same. Where the difference comes in is the cost of mailing them via canada post. In all cases I ask for the cheepest rate. I live in Vancouver so here are the rates from Vancouver to: Florida=$6.65, Ireland=$7.50, Central Mexico (Juanijuato) $7.50, Mississauga, Ontario =$10.90 !!!!
If I mail it to myself it costs $6.66. This is one cent more than it costs to Florida. The size of my parcel puts it in the small packets catagory. I'm sure this is the largest category of parcels sent, so If you live in Canada and are sending to Canada, you should be very proud to be contributing to the CEO of Canada Post's retirement fund!
That's crazy. I think probably what is happening is that we are not contributing to the CEO of Canada Post's retirement fund, so much as we are subsidizing shipping costs to places like the Northwest Territories and all the other places in Canada that are off the beaten path (which is a large percentage of Canada).
I have been reading through and wonder if it is Canada Posts lack of reasonable rates that prevent sales on ebay. Looking at furniture on the Canadian auction site there are very few sellers that will ship. Almost all state pick up only and a great deal of them have 0 bids. Is there a reasonable and safe way to send furniture or collectibles across the country?
Yes I agree the pricing system makes no sense at all. You should try working the counter at Canada Post and listen to the customers Gasps and exclamations of disbelief of the prices to mail a tiny light thing. It shames me. And no the money is not going into the workers wages....offices are terribly understaffed all over the country.
Call Canada Post and complain. Complain to your MP's. Canada Post makes huge profits. It's time they invested these profits into improving their services.
Good idea. Maybe I'll write a "Dear MP," letter here on this blog post and tell people to print it and mail it to their MP.
I send out a lot of books in the mail as well. I don't even bother using Canada Post anymore. I just stack up my books until I have more than 15 of them and take an hours drive to Buffalo, NY then send them out via USPS.
That includes sending back into the country.
And we are not the only ones! The postal workers will tell us about how "Oh just yesterday there was another Canadian in here shipping out about 25 items".
Canada Post is losing business. They need to get their act together and figure out a way to lower costs because I still save, even with the rediculously high gas prices, by driving down to the USA.
Interesting comment, maybe I should think about driving down to Blaine or Bellingham once I have a bunch of books. Actually, having a P.O. Box in Blaine has other advantages as well. I think with P.O. Boxes you can receive stuff from any of those websites that only ship to the US.
Its too bad - i'm sure the gas money that it costs to drive an hour to Buffalo - not to mention the 2 hours out of your day probably offsets any savings that you would otherwise reap.
At least it sends Canada Post a message! :)
I've been selling things on eBay. I had not gotten any Canadian buyers until yesterday. It cost me $6.20 to ship the same item to USA, $7.29 to Malaysia, but $10.53 to Vancourver! I don't even know how to list my stuff on eBay anymore, it's so hard to calculate the rate for the locals. Kindda Dilbertism!
When I asked why is it more expensive, she told me because it includes tracking. I guess we should ask WHY DO THEY FORCE TRACKING ON US when we just need it cheap?
I have lived in many different countries. For my experience, Canada Post provide the best service. I mean for the delivery speed and the state of the parcel upon arrival. I estimate that I has 1% lost and damaged postal when I was in USA. I can totally live with that error if it's cheap. I love their Media Rate for books, which promotes reading. It's so hard for me to buy or sell books now.
I've only lived in Canada for 3.5 years. This kind of Anti-business regulation never stopped surprising me. Is it because of socialism? (but it's not like that in Italy.)
I don't feel like doing business with Canadians out of my province. Don't you think Canada Post is promoting separation?
I'm going to email this to Freakonomics blog and see what the economists think.
I agree,
I ship out DVDs to both US and Canada.
Light Package is 4.50 to USA.
The same DVD is 13.50 in Canada
I'm going to check out lettermail today.
You might not be able to ship a DVD by letter mail. Although the dimensions are ok, I think lettermail has to be paper... Unfortunately we have no media mail in Canada.
I just shipped two "small packets" from BC - one to Toronto, the other to Sao Paolo, Brazil. Guess which cost more and only went by land?
because my sister likes to receive items from Holland, you know...And she has a Egyptian husband who is not so nice. I am afraid he will spend the money then. My sister said the post office in Toronto said to her that the parcel was delivered to her, but that nobody was at home at the time of delivery or they say that the postal code isn't correct. I mean: her name is right and the street and housenumber, so what are they talking about...bullshit...If I receive a parcel in Holland, they throw a deliverynote into your postbox and you can catch the parcel at the postoffice with the deliverynote within 3 weeks....the last parcel (I finally find the Canadian Post website, so I could see the state of delivery of the parcel) was sent back within a week. And the date was the 27h of february. I haven't received it back yet.
-----
I am very angry about the post sending in Canada. My sister lives in
Toronto. I live in the Netherlands in Europe. Every year I send a parcel
weight about 10 kilos to her and her 7 children. In december 2006 I send
her a parcel which only came to her after about 8 weeks. Last year, in july
2007, I sent her again a parcel. Within 4 days she had the parcel. But last
4th of february 2008 I send her a parcel and according the site of TNT
(Dutch post) the parcel wasn't deliverd yet. I spend a lot of money per
parcel (about 54 Euros) and in the parcel are clothes and toys for the
children. I daren't send anymore parcels now to my sister. My sister has
almost no money to live on. That's why I am sending her these parcels. I
hope someone has a solution for me of a website from the Toronto post so I
can complain to them.
--
Canada Post is perhaps one of the most expensive national postal service in the world for shipping large packages. It is a federal monopoly that gauges customers because there are not many options. For example, two years ago when I lived in New York, I mailed home(to Canada) 3 large boxes, each weighing between 10-15 kg, for less than $50 USD each. From France last year, I sent home a 20 kg box for 100 euros. Last week, I tried to mail 3 boxes to Europe that weighed next to nothing. Roughly two kilos each. Canada Post wanted almost 200 CAD each box! They only have two options. 5 day expediated service or by land, which would take 5-6 weeks. No middle ground. In the end my friends will not receive their Christmas presents in time. I ended up paying almost 100 CAD each for the surface option, which is still ridiculously expensive. There is no point in complaining to a Federally approved monopoly. They don't care and won't listen.
I too sent out a small envelope today, June 2, 2008 and was shocked to pay $11.00 for a 6 business day delivery. Tonight I reviewed UPS rates and found that for $14.95 I could have sent the same envelope and had it in Calgary within 2 days. Canada Post rates definitely need to be looked at.
I sell allot of stuff on ebay , while I use to ! Canada Post has made it to difficult to sell medium and large size parcels s/h cost more then the parcels ! I think the dollar when it was 67 cents was adjusted for the US dollar, but now that its even par there is a 33 cent adjustment that has never been made and when the post office does a gas surcharge they always go up ,but when the price of gas goes down , you never see the surcharge go down !!! Its frustrating I know !
Car
I own Floating Point Digital Images, and frequently send long, thin boxes containing prints, decals - that kind of stuff.
Last year I tried to mail a 30"x4"x4" box, but neither the local post-office nor the online shipping tool could calculate a rate for it, so I couldn't send it. Had the box been 30"x6"x6", then I could have. In the end I ended up using FedEx who quite happily sorted it out for me.
I have the SAME problem.
I had two 9 x 7 envelopes. Both VERY light.
I sent one to Toronto from Scarborough and it cost me about 7 dollars.
I sent one to Conneticut from Scarborough and it cost me about 4 dollars and change.
AND the one I sent to Conneticut was SMALLER AND LIGHTER.
Figure that one out.
Why is it more expensive to send to your OWN province as opposed to sending to a DIFFERENT COUNTRY?!
Canada Post is the reason people go "Postal". I almost did recently in a drug store CP outlet. 4 - 5 day delivery of a birthday card to the US....13.00+ change!!!! Slow boat to China (rather, in this case, Tucson)...1.15. It arrived within 8 days.
Don't even consider getting your mail held or forwarded for any length of time. This is a FREE service in the United States. Here it costs more than your damn vacation almost.
I just wish there was something we could do about the rediculous prices and, I must say, often lousy service.
I am just preparing to send out a box of Christmas gifts from Edmonton to the West Coast. CP will probably cost me more than the value of what's inside. Greyhound has gone up considerably over time even tho the price of fuel has come down. I don't expect any of the courier services are cheap. Oh well, after all...it is Christmas. Have a happy one!
I imagine that letters, small parcels, and large parcels go through different sorting and routing machines / procedures. Letters are fairly uniform, so they can probably be separated, oriented, sorted, and routed completely mechanically. Packages may require some manual intervention, or at least bigger and more complex machines. So the fixed price for letters is probably far smaller than for parcels, and they don't even need to charge for weight if it doesn't gum up their machines. That would explain the big jump in price you saw.
has anyone notice the fee cp charges if you don't get your parcel to the postal outlet before the truks leave . Twice now I have noticed an extra fee on my mile long bill for not getting to the post office before the 2:30 deadline {this is the time the trucks are leaving for the day to take mail and percels on their way}.
THE FOLLOWING IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. It is MY material, but as soon as you use anything written below, it becomes YOUR material and your method. Own your actions. And life is supposed to be entertaining, after all. I would like to thank all the numerous people who have contributed material before.
David,
If it were me I would check to see if the same framework, mentioned below, exists in the land known as Canada. The Canadian Postal Service pre-dates the CANADA POST Corporation and the corporation called CANADA (check out sec.gov, do an Edgar search for CANADA). What were the rates of the de jure (legitimate) Canadian Postal Service? Can you send mail non-domestic within the land commonly known as Canada? I bet you can...
Google: sending non-domestic mail without the U.S.
Found: http://www.unitedstatesofrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/non-domestic-mailings.pdf
* Edit: I found some mistakes and they are noted in the version below.
* Edit: Men and man is a gender-neutral term. Woman is the female, wereman is male. Hence the terms 'Mankind' and 'Werewolf'. Perceptions my statement rubs you funny are due to the single doctrine of dumbed-down Corporate education, television, radio, newspapers and magazines you have received n' believed. "Have no Gods before me."
* Edit: To get the idea of differences between living man and fictional STRAWMAN in your head, I might suggest thinking about a professional who does his job, comes home and becomes a father or mother, a completely different (and 'schizophrenic') role change. This is how one physical location can have two names, one to identify the location, and a second which resembles the first but is in fact a fictional ADDRESS within the Corporation, another fiction. Corporations, being fictions on a piece of paper, can only interface with other fictions, and living men only when they sign as the fiction.
How to send mail for 2 cents for ½ ounce and 4 cents per 1 ounce.
2 cent rate for non-domestic mail. DOMESTIC (within the U.S. Government Corporation) – versus non-domestic (without government, between private living men). Capitalization of domestic is for emphasis.
The writer gives an example. But if I were doing it, it might say the following:
Jack-Michael: Doe
c/o 400 Big Mountain Road
Stone Ridge, New York state,
non-domestic without the U.S.
The writer gives the example "near (12484)-9999"
Anything with a ZIP code on it puts it in DOMESTIC mail.
It might be possible to add [12345], as anything within four corners on a legal document does not exist unless specifically included in the main text. I am almost certain postal clerks will say 'The mail cannot be delivered (domestically) without a ZIP code'. And they are correct. Tell them you want it delivered non-domestically, without the U.S.
If it were me, as a test I might first send without any Corporate (ZIP) codes a few letters to friends.
I'm guessing the Canadian Postal Service (non-corporate, as inherited by CANADA POST) follows the same format for non-domestic:
Jim-Anthony: Fraser
c/o 400 Big Mountain Road
Stone Ridge, province of Ontario ('Province of Ontario' should be written however you write the name to mean the traditional area, not the de facto Corporate jurisdiction)
non-domestic without CANADA
Note: Jim-Anthony: Fraser is shorthand for 'Jim-Anthony of the Fraser family', and about as distinct from writing the legal fiction JIM ANTHONY FRASER as I can imagine. Notice how the former emphasises the family, while the latter emphasises the individual. I think there is no co-incidence there.
Does this make sense to anyone?
Don't assume these are any better. I sent a book off to England March 9 Small Packet Surface (I was paying the postage). The delivery standard for surface - 4-6 weeks. It still hasn't arrived! Even in the days of sail it could have crossed the Atlantic 4 to 5 times.
Wow...nice blog...at least we can commiserate with each other...
I have a warehouse in Florida where my product comes in from Sweden. I had a shipment sent to Canada for shipping to Canadians. I am paying $1.49 to ship to the continental US and $1.69 to ship to anywhere in Canada from Florida. When I got my product here in Canada I went to the post office here in New Westminster with the intention of sending a small 6x9 padded envelope (the same I use in the US) with one box of product that weighs almost nothing. The cost? $10.34! Why? because it almost fits through the letter slot...almost. Because it doesn't fit it is $10.34...well needless to say I sent my product back to Florida and have it shipped from there to my Canadian customers. My total cost per package with the padded envelope and the cost of mailing is under $2.00 US Over $11.00 in Canada. It takes a couple of extra days to get here but the customers understand because they know it is coming from the US. What would you do?
I absolutely HATE Canada Post! and I do not say that lightly! I sell on eBay as a private seller but I am losing sales faster than I can list them. The reason of course are the Canada Post shipping costs.
Here's some examples
Last year I sold an old long and Twiggy thin plastic walking doll that was 23 inches high for $25.00 she had stiff legs and because of the leg moving joints in her hips she could not be bent so I packed her in a 26 inch x 10 inch x 10 inch box it was going to the UK . Weight was just under 1 kilo so she should have qualified for small packet international airmail approx $30.00 BUT Because the box she was in was 3 inches over the length allowed for a small packet she could not go as small packet airmail she had to be sent as a surface parcel and would cost over $60.00 LUDICROUS! I lost the sale!
Here's another one sold a huge heavy piece of Blue mountain pottery to a collector in NZ cost to ship from Canada Post was $90.00+ buyer was not happy ! I was going to visit a friend at nigara falls the following week so took the parcel with me and crossed the border and mailed it in Niagara USA cost was $38.00us got my sale and the buyer was delighted.
I absolutely HATE Canada Post! since they changed to measuring boxes and charging us by volume instead of weight as it always was and should be, their prices have gone sky high and are absolutely crazy too! 2 grams in weight ove the 1 kilo and the price is double! They are killing all small businesses and private sellers on the internet. But what can we do I have complained and complained and they do nothing about it. We need them and they know it!
I absolutely HATE Canada Post! I absolutely HATE Canada Post! I absolutely HATE Canada Post! I absolutely HATE Canada Post! I absolutely HATE Canada Post! I absolutely HATE Canada Post! I absolutely HATE Canada Post!
yes, the difference in costs is a total scam and money grab. Most packages i send out to the US are border line $20-30. A friend of mine send a boxed package to me a few years ago that cost $3. anything equivalent at the time would have cost me about $8-10. Last year, i got a poster from alaska and i noticed postage was $4.50 or so. I'm in Ontario. Out of curiousity, i didn't leave the post office and asked how much to send the same package back to the originating address. she told me just under $18. That's a 4 times the cost. somebody is making a ton of money out of this
I was considering starting an online business, selling possibley on Ebay and or Etsy. The only way I can make it pay is if I only sell internationally, using Canada Post's small packet service. I cannot afford to ship inside Canada. Canadians are forced to buy outside of Canada to keep shipping costs reasonable! Sellers are losing sales. All my research points to me refusing to ship inside of Canada. Insane!
~k
I have a book store in Amazon.ca Marketplace, and the price Amazon.ca gives is only $6.49. So we got a small business account for Canada Post, and it gives "expedited parcel" for business accounts at the same time, but as this post, what I am wondering is if you send a mail with lettermail, it is only $2 something but with parcel it is well over $10. That is just shocking. I wonder what is the difference in them.
I just shipped a vhs taped to St John's Nfld it cost me $13.45, just because the item could not fit letter mail by just a fraction of cm. How can Canadians compete on an international stage when they are gouged to this degree. Canada post beat me into to submission with their yearly rate increases and constant price structure changes. I gave up both my Ebay and Amazon business out to pure frustration with Canada post.
I ended up at this page for the same reason as most--frustration at the high prices and inequity at Canada Post. Another example is the "fuel surcharge". Recently it was levied at a dollar for an expresspost letter, and for a package weighing 25 times as much, the same amount. Nonsensical! Consumer gouging! Standing at the counter, what can you say. The unionized employee serving you will just tell you to write to head office, it's got nothing to do with me.
If only that were true.
I too am setting up a business that will rely heavily on shipping small parcels. I am horrified at knowing how shipping charges will cut into my sales, and the same old thing as everyone else--it will be cheaper for me to ship to the US, and prohibitive to ship overseas.
So all you Canada Post employees, and management--don't expect public sympathy next time you go on strike, or are faced with rounds of layoffs. If you were an entrepreneur, you would be facing the real world, and being gouged at every turn by smug unionized services who don't consider who are paying for their benefits and job security.
The question is--what can be done? Not like I can buy a horse and start up my own pony express.
I am an eBay seller and I hate Canada Post.
I asked at the Post Office why Canada Post rates are so ridiculously expensive compared to USPS. To ship a package overseas using Small Packet Air is over $30.00 if the package is over 500g. I understand the USPS charges only a fraction of this to ship overseas, like under $10. The rude woman at the counter had no answer for me.
I generate more income for Canada Post than I do for myself. I can't compete with U.S. sellers. I can't ship a VHS tape within Canada for under $11, but I can order one from California and pay only $4 shipping. Canada Post is terrible for small business in Canada. I wish that there was some competition in this country, perhaps a flat-rate box that wasn't a ridiculous scam or media mail rate.
Wow, its mind boggling when you see the comaprision of sending something to Canada V/S somewhere else in the world! I was one of those angry frustrated costumer backin the days. Thats how I ended up seeing this blog..what a great peice! I read so many different blog posts and comments on the internet and tried digging up some resources for myselfto see how I could truly save and not end up paying an arm and a leg on a silly 1kg parcel. Then, I bumped into this company called Shipito. Wow, they gave me amzingly low rates for sending my parcels to Canada. Hope this info helps!
It's funny to read people complaining about the mail system in other countries. Here in the UK we have at minimum 2 distruption each year when postal workers or sorting office staff go on strike. The workers always seem to have their problems just before Christmas and threaten strikes for most of November/December with 1 or 2 walkouts just to show how much distruption they can cause. Postal service the wolrd over has its problems but we just have to find different ways around them.
Canada Post sucks the wad, big time. I recently moved to Canada from USA, and USPS is cheaper and far superior in every way.
For example: if you move ANYWHERE in USA, you simply fill out the moving form or do it online and its done, FREE. Canada Post, I just discovered will charge me $80 to forward my mail as I moved from TO to Vancouver, inter-province. Within province: $69!
Further: hold mail in USA with USPS is FREE. Period. Doesn't matter how long. Fuckin' Canada Post charges you LOADS of money--$30 and up!!!!!!!!!!
They suck, they suck, they suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How do you Canadians put up with this bullshit from your government post office?
I know there's loads of problems in USA where Canada seems to do a better job, but clearly USPS is MUCH BETTER and provides these services FOR FREE, wheras crappy Canada Post just wants to screw Canadians out of every effin' nickel, dime and dollar they can get.
....I'm NOT using them. I'm simply notifying folks of my new address myself. It makes me so pissed off because I'm used to how good USPS is/was, and now I'm stuck with these losers :-(
I know my friend Lisa who is a Manager at Canada Post Distribution in Vancouver tells me that they are having such huge problems with letter carriers who are running show. It is because of their Union and their membership is to why your parcel doesn't get the respect it should have.
The many merchants who run a Canada Post retail are doing their darnedest hard working giving you great customer skills, sadly your goods get delivered when its Canada Post Union members time.
I have dealt with many lazy Canada Post clerks on Pine and west 8th in Vancouver. They are awful. They tell me 2 days with Priority from Their location to Moncton New-Brunswick and it arrives 5 days later. I go back and they gang up on me to tell me they never said that.. wtf?? Its not the first time i have had problems with those idiots at that location.
Now i take my business to UPS on Broadway.. much better and actually faster and on time tracking that only cost me $4 more, and the service, they actually repack if needed free of charge.
I no longer get USPS from California and Florida to be shiped to Vancouver has it takes 23 days , now i get it shipped to a US/Canada border address that only takes 2 days.
What Canada post does, it gets all USPS to ship from any US points to New_york State, then it goes to Mississauga Distribution than it gets put on a truck to Vancouver.
If i order something from New Jersey, it goes to Mississauga than Vancouver in 4 days
if my sister ships something from Mississauga to Vancouver, it takes 7 days. what is wrong with this picture?
I BELIEVE CANADA POST CORPORATION SHOULD CHANGE THEIR NAME AND FIRE ALL CANADA POST UNION EMPLOYEES> WE WOULD GET MUCH BETTER SERVICE! Hire a 3rd company like Aramark or Sodexo to hire contract workers. You don't need a grade 6 education to do what they do for such a overpaid work and we end up paying for their lazy work and customer service.. we no longer have Value and they no longer have work ethics
I totally agree that Canada Post rates are too expensive. I gave up my online business because of it and had to go back to a regular job. Coincidentally I wound up casual / part time at a Canada Post office and I can see both sides of the issue.
At Canada Post we work hard. Working in the back, sorting and hauling packages around is filthy work, and physically demanding. Working in the front has its own set of challenges. There is so much to learn, everything has to be quickly done yet precise, and you have to smile and put up with cranky miserable demanding customers bitching and complaining about prices and Canada Posts policies... neither of which you have absolutely any control over. The union is actually so crappy that the employer is allowed to work you up to 6 hours with one 10 minute break, some shifts are only 2 lousy hours, and the wages aren't that great either considering what you have to do. The job is damned hard. Most shifts are part time. The problem is that the place is run as a corporation and everything has to make a profit so that the managers and CEO types can get their big wages. And the fact that as another poster above mentioned, we are subsidizing the mail being able to get to the whole country including remote areas with the rates.
The union has nothing to do with the problems at Canada Post. I get really pissed when people say that union workers are making too much money, like we should be trying to scrape by on minimum wage or something. I could not live off the paycheck I get from the few hours I get at Canada Post and believe me I would not be going in to sort mail at 6 am for a lousy 2 hour shift if they weren't paying $17 bucks an hour and I didn't live 5 minutes away from the post office. Its barely worth it for that, and it certainly would not be worth it for minimum wage. If wages were taken away from us as some here advocate, you would wind up with the same sort of problem as when the BC Liberal party busted the hospital unions and lowered the wages on the workers and now the hospitals are filthy and full of superbugs. Lets put it this way... if minimum wage workers were sorting and delivering your mail you'd be lucky to get it and it wouldn't be in very good condition if you did. And I bet the ones who are saying that we're making too much aren't working for minimum wage themselves.
I was just at the Canada mail website checking out the increase in rates they want for next month. Their reason? decreased volume, so they have to increase revenue by raising their rates. This is no way to increase volume. No real business could get away with it. The whole outfit is walking off a cliff. What we need in Canada is a wide open field where anyone can start a letter carrier business, not another gov't monopoly.
PS the guy with the book to mail should rip it in half down the spine and send it as two letters.
PPS the other day I was sending out my Christmas cards. I had made a ittle homemade booklet, so it was overweight, and in a larger than normal envelope - a lettersize folded in half, maybe 6 pages. I figured it'd cost me 2 stamps to mail it and I was ok with that. So the worker asks me what's in the envelope as if it's her business. Now, having read this whole fantastic blog, I think I get it: she was trying to figure out if I had slipped anything in there that wasn't paper, 'coz, according to one or two of the writers here, lettermail has to be paper only. I never knew that.
I started out writing about Canada Post's policy. Now, I have a policy of my own. Never tell government the truth. They lie, cheat, steal, and generally screw up people's lives. We owe them nothing, and I certainly have never felt any obligation to be truthful to the bastards.
Actually what we need in Canada is a few good men to form a party that will fearlessly sweep all the crap and corruption away from every department. What fun!
This is a very old post that is still drawing comments - which says to me that nothing has changed at Canada Post since 2006.
This year, my daughter's Christmas gift was sent ExpressPost on Dec 23 and has not arrived - it's Dec. 28. I checked the status of the package and all it says is that the package was received by the post office at the departure site. I would appreciate knowing at least the expected delivery date.
I did a blog post on this very topic back in March 2009. http://www.mudcreative.com/life-in-general/post-office-blues/
Honestly, I have given up on this sorry, substandard service completely. And, it's only a matter of time before everyone else does the same. Soon the Canadian Postal Service will simply be no more. Oh well....
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