After 5 weeks of rotating strikes with no agreement between Canada Post and its workers, the Senate has passed legislation ordering an end to the strikes as of 12 noon EST November 27th.

Canada Post said today, “While operations are set to resume, backlogs of both mail and parcels in the network are severe. Long and unpredictable delivery delays will likely be the situation for the foreseeable future.”

And today’s update for International parcels is worse.  Said Canada Post, “Delays are likely to stretch into March of 2019.  International items will require screening by the Canada Border Services Agency.”

Over 50 million packages were delivered by Canada Post last year.

With just four weeks of holiday shopping left and untold millions of packages that will need to be delivered in Canada, businesses are looking for a Christmas miracle to get through the crisis in the busiest shopping season of the year.

“At this point, the question for eCommerce retailers is whether to ship to Canada or not and/or if you can manage to secure another last mile shipping and logistics partner to get packages to customers,” according to Mary Beth Dixon, Point2Point Global’s Senior Manager, Strategic Finance. “Retailers should consider the following as possible workarounds.”

  1. Leverage your brick and mortar locations by promoting in-store pick-ups.  Provide incentives like a small giveaway to customers to get them in the door.
  2. Create an event, like a holiday party, offering food, drinks, special sales or a raffle for a grand prize.
  3. Offer your Canadian customers unique deals or value-added items that are worth waiting for to work around the longer delivery times.
  4. Have an “invitation-only” private sale for your top Canadian customers and guarantee free expedited shipping on all orders over a predetermined dollar amount.

Stay on top of the latest updates at canadapost.ca/update and get 6 more tips in our earlier blog post:  Don’t Let Canada Post Strikes Be a Lump of Coal in Your Stocking.”

Questions?  Ask us!  We know our ship — and yours too.