Saturday, July 02, 2011

Why we need Canada Post

In the wake of the Canada Post lockout, some of the commentariat is asking whether we really need Canada Post. I can tell you that, from my perspective as a customer, I certainly do! Here's two real-life examples of why:

The item: a used Wii, purchased on eBay.
The cost: $140, including shipping
The courier: UPS
The brokerage fee, due cash on delivery: $60
Further complications: It had to be picked up at Jane and Steeles, which, given the depot's operating hours and my work hours, would have been impossible if not for the fact that @BroadwayProfe is awesome and drove me all the way up there.

The item: a couple of silly things from ThinkGeek as a surprised gift for a friend.
The cost: $25 for the gift, $15 for shipping
The courier: DHL
The brokerage fee, due cash on delivery: $17.35
Further complications: It was a gift - a silly gift of little consequence - and the recipient had to pay more than the shipping cost upon receipt, completely defeating the purpose of a gift.

In comparison, Canada Post would have charged $0 COD for the first item (there's no duty on used good) and a maximum of $4 COD on the second item - literally pocket change. If it had not been possible to put the packages in the recipients' mailboxes and the recipients had not been home, the packages would have ended up about a five minute walk away, at places whose operating hours included evenings and weekends.

Private couriers seem to charge extortionate brokerage fees that are significantly greater than the duty levied on the item in question. Canada Post has the decency to include the cost of getting items across the border in their international shipping costs, and charges the end customer no more than the duty levied on the item (I say "no more than" because in the past I have had someone along the way waive small duty charges of just a few dollars, which was the gamble I was taking with the ThinkGeek purchase). Private couriers leave undeliverable packages at distant depots with inconvenient hours. Canada Post leaves them at neighbourhood post offices with convenient hours.

Before we even get into important questions like good jobs for the future, service availability in all corners of the country, whether public money should be enriching corporations etc., the fact of the matter is that, for the customer, Canada Post is by far the easiest and most convenient. In cases where retailers have offered me multiple shipping options, Canada Post is always the cheapest, and it never has ridiculous and unpredictable brokerage fees. It would be a great detriment to us all to lose it.

1 comment:

laura k said...

I wholeheartedly agree! I wondered if the people questioning whether we still need Canada Post were actually anti-union trolls disguising themselves. To me it's so obvious we still need a national postal service.