Artisans and other small-scale makers in the capital region say a strike by Canada Post workers has hurt their online sales, although at least one business says she’s found a cheaper shipping alternative for the holiday season.
Joanne Arnold, owner of Soulful Sister Aromatherapy, which sells essential oils and other aromatherapy products, said she was conflicted about her decision to switch to other courier services as a result of the strike.
“I want Canada Post workers to have proper pay, [but] I also want to keep my business afloat and keep my employees paid so I had to switch [to] couriers.”
To her surprise, shipping her goods through a third-party site that linked with various courier services saved her 10 to 30 per cent of shipping costs.
“We were considering raising our free-shipping threshold from $75 to $85 and now we don’t have to,” said Arnold.
She pointed out, however, that most alternatives do not have rural or northern service and Canada Post is the only mail carrier that can deliver to a P.O. box.
Despite a prominent notice on the Langford-based business website announcing the switch to a combination of UPS and Purolator for shipments, online sales — which account for about a third of her business — have “really slowed,” Arnold said.
Many who conduct business by mail have not been able to find alternatives at similar prices.
For the past five days, Cheryl Marsh has found herself making deliveries around the capital region and even in the Lower Mainland for her Colwood-based business, Evercoast Handmade, which sells reusable snack bags, facial squares and other fabric-related goods.
Courier prices are about 10 times more expensive than Canada Post’s, she said. “That’s just not realistic for my business,” she said. “It’s [more] expensive to ship than to drive out from my house.”
About half of Evercoast Handmade’s sales are online and the rest come from artisan markets in Vancouver Island and on the Lower Mainland, she said.
Since the strike started, Marsh has been co-ordinating alternative delivery methods with long-term customers. One customer drove from Maple Ridge to a Chilliwack artisan market to pick up an order on Sunday. On her way home from Chilliwack, Marsh dropped off another order in Delta, she said.
Marsh said web traffic to her website is down by nearly half this month — usually her busiest month.
“Customers, they’re more hesitant to order without a definite timeline as to when they’re going to get their purchase,” she said.
Many of her suppliers — also Canada-based small businesses — have transitioned to courier services and are charging higher prices, she said.
The last Canada Post strike in 2018 was a significant setback but was manageable, as it only “slowed down shipping, versus stopping it completely,” she said.
Marsh said it’s important to support local businesses who have lost an entire revenue stream during the busiest time of the retail season. “It’s the money we use to pay our mortgages and feed our families,” she said.
Wendy Cardiff of Wendy Cardiff Creative, a Colwood-based wood-maker and resin artist who specializes in home accessories, said she can’t tell if the orders she sent out a week before the strike started are arriving.
While the shipping tracker says the parcels are still in transit, some people have reached out to say they’ve received their orders or have left reviews, she said.
“When it’s my name on the product, I want to make sure my customers are happy and that they’ve received it,” she said.
About 20 per cent of her business comes from online sales, on top of her wholesale orders, which are also delivered by Canada Post, she said.
She’s since found alternatives, but they’re more expensive.
For example, shipping orders to California by courier is on average about 65 per cent more expensive than via Canada Post, Cardiff said.
Thankfully, sales on the artisan-market circuit have been going strong, she said.
“Locals are getting out and shopping locally, keeping the money local — more so now, with the shipping [disruptions]. If they can buy something here and not buy it elsewhere, they won’t have to worry about shipping.”
Vanessa Gaudet is co-founder of Market Collective, a retail store with two branches — one at Mattick’s Farm and the other at the Bay Centre — that sells wares from close to 200 Southern Vancouver Island-based artisans. She said it’s too early to tell if there will be a ripple effect that affects bricks-and-mortar operations.
Many vendors are facing disruptions in supplies, some of which were pre-paid and are needed to meet holiday-season demand, she said in a statement.
However, artisans are already used to dealing with unexpected challenges that in recent years have included the COVID-19 pandemic and inflationary stresses, she said.
“Our local artisans have gone through an incredible series of challenges in the last few years,” she said.
About 55,000 employees represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers walked off the job on Friday, shutting down operations and halting deliveries as the busy holiday season kicks off.
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