From time to time, I get an email from someone who wanted to purchase something from the shop but got sticker shock when they went to check out when they saw the shipping price.  Most times, people are understanding when I explain but there have been a couple of nasty ones lately complete with profanity and I mean, come ON.  Really?

The cost of shipping is an unfortunate “feature” of living in Canada and in fact a large part of what made me hesitate so long to even open the shop up in 2020.

We have a small population density for the huge landmass we live on.  For instance, our land mass is 1.6% larger than the US but we have about 1/10th the population.  We’re 40 times larger than the UK and we have just over half the population.

That means that packages are fewer for every kilometre (mile) travelled and so we pay more to ship.  What’s also really unfortunate is that through nearly every carrier, I can often ship for less to Florida than I can to Calgary which is less than 240miles (400kms) from me.

Compounding the issue is our postal system is terribly inefficiently run (Crown corp and no real accountability, very frequently mis-routing packages which costs a lot of money and time – i.e. my parcel that came through customs in Richmond BC had no business going to Quebec on the way to Alberta, then there was the pensions debacle that we’re still paying for… ) and fuel prices.

With fuel prices soaring, Canada Post for instance has started adjusting their fuel surcharges on a weekly basis.  Yes, weekly increases.  That means that a quote I give on Friday is out of date on Monday and not usually in my favour.  All of the parcel companies are doing similar things and recommending that shippers evaluate their shipping charges regularly because of this. Continue reading Blame Canada? Shipping realities →