Tag: Canada

Potential job losses in mail, union warns

Posted by | May 6, 2008 | |

Canada Post’s new union president is warning Canadians that their mail delivery could be in jeopardy and hundreds of jobs could be lost.
In an interview with Sun Media, new Canada Post national union president Denis Lemelin accused the Conservatives and Canada Post CEO Moya Greene of attempting to deregulate postal services in Canada.
Lemelin pointed to the Harper government’s recently announced “strategic review” of Canada Post, set to examine which services should remain under the monopoly of Canada Post and which should become fair game in a competitive market.
A final report is expected in December.

Canada Post currently has a monopoly over the delivery of letters up to 500 grams to 15 million doors across the country.
Lemelin fears that deregulation could mean that Canadians in metropolitan areas might have their daily mail handled by UPS, Federal Express or Purolator.
“These private companies could decide to implement distribution centres in the greater areas and handle mail delivery for Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto,” he said.
He also warned that deregulation would result in hundreds of layoffs across Canada and an increase in stamp prices.
“The private sector would invest in the greater metropolitan areas — where it’s profitable,” he said.
“The public postal service would end up with less profitable sectors, such as rural areas.

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Canada Post set to deliver fatal blow to rural mail service

Posted by | May 3, 2008 | |

If you have a rural mailbox, walk to the end of your driveway and kiss it goodbye. Canada Post is engaged in an aggressive campaign to eliminate traditional rural mail delivery. The stupidity of the program is exceeded only by the cost.

Tens of thousands of Canadians have already had service to their rural mail boxes cut off, including 200 in Ottawa. The number nationally could reach the hundreds of thousands if Canada Post has its way.

The problem, Canada Post says, is heavy rural traffic volumes that make delivery to end-of-the-lane boxes unsafe. Rural mail carriers have filed 1,700 health and safety complaints since 2004, and Canada Post is simply putting safety first, says corporate spokesman Sachin Despande.

No one is against safety, but the magnitude of Canada Post’s response is stunningly out of proportion to the problem. There are 843,000 roadside mailboxes in Canada. The corporation is reviewing the safety of each and every one of them, using a complex series of criteria developed by three separate consulting firms.

The cost of the rural mailbox program is $500 million over three years.

Yes, that’s half a billion dollars to deal with what’s actually a relatively small number of health and safety complaints.

The post office is averaging a little over 400 driver complaints a year. More than half of those, the company acknowledges, are ergonomics-related.

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UPS Canada podcasts

Posted by | May 1, 2008 | |

Reaching out a helping hand to Canada’s small business market, UPS Canada today announced the launch of a new advice-oriented podcast series called Logistically Speaking. Hosted by Canadian small business expert, journalist and blogger, Rick Spence, the podcasts will be available for download through iTunes and other podcast directories, as well as on UPS.com.

In a pilot series of three 10- to 15-minute episodes, Logistically Speaking addresses key issues affecting the SMB market with a strong focus on helping businesses reach beyond Canada’s borders. Throughout the series, host Rick Spence interviews expert guests about hands-on issues that affect entrepreneurs – from tips on how to survive the credit crunch, to sourcing the perfect shipping partner. The Logistically Speaking roster features the following topics and guests:

– Episode 1 – Why Go Global? – Justine Hendricks, Regional Vice
President of Small Business Sales, Export Development Canada
Available today, April 30, 2008
– Episode 2 – Surviving North America’s Current Economic Climate –
Amgad Shehata, Vice President of Government Relations, UPS Canada
Available May 28, 2008
– Episode 3 -Getting to Know Your Market – Hylton Karon, President,
Coconut Grove Intimates
Available June 25, 2008

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Parcel pickup moves; BIA upset with change by Canada Post

Posted by | May 1, 2008 | |

Changes made to parcel delivery have business and political leaders on the verge of going postal.

Businesses and residents can no longer go to the downtown post office to pick up parcels. Instead, they must travel to one of the two Shoppers Drug Mart’s on Algonquin Boulevard.

Canada Post recently changed how it handles packages that require a signature and are not delivered to the door.

Instead of heading to the post office, located at the corner of Balsam Street and Second Avenue, residents and businesses now have to travel to Canada Post retail outlets located inside either of the two drug stores located on Algonquin Boulevard.

Downtown Timmins Business Improvement Association president Andrew Marks said the move is a form of downsizing. He’s worried that more than 250 businesses which have central access to the post office will now have to deal with the huge headache of commuting to get their parcels.

Marks said it’s businesses that are constantly picking up parcels, not regular residents. What’s worse, he said, is that those who would walk into the downtown core no longer have to, and that will equate to a dent in retail activity.

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Canada E-Commerce Growing Quickly

Posted by | Apr 30, 2008 | |

Online sales increased at a double-digit pace for the sixth consecutive year in 2007, according to Statistics Canada. Total private and public sector Internet sales hit an estimated C$62.7 billion ($58.6 billion), up 26% from 2006.

Despite the continued strong growth, e-commerce still represents a relatively small fraction of total economic activity, at about 2% of total operating revenue.

Statistics Canada said that only about 8% of Canadian private sector companies sell goods and services online.

In the private sector, business-to-business sales accounted for 62% of online sales in 2007, down from 68% in 2006. The proportion of online business-to-consumer sales climbed from 32% to 38%.

B2C e-commerce sales therefore reached C$23.8 billion ($22.2 billion), or 38% of C$62.7 billion. That is almost 50% higher than eMarketer’s November 2007 estimate. eMarketer counts online travel, tickets and digital downloads as services, not products, and thus excludes them from its estimate.

It is estimated that customers outside Canada generated almost one out of every five dollars (19%) in online sales in the private sector, similar to the last two years.

While Canadian consumers are comfortable purchasing travel, media products, and computer hardware and software online, they tend to shy away from high-touch categories such as apparel and home furnishings. Instead, they head to one of their excellent shopping malls. A common explanation for this tendency is that, unlike Americans, Canadians lack a catalog tradition and have not been conditioned to shop remotely.

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