A few Canada Post locations I've been to have a new option where you can buy a small/ medium/large box for a set price, and as long as what you're shipping fits inside and doesn't exceed a certain weight, you can send it anywhere in the country for that set price. So I got the small box today which cost $14 with tax and fits the Cloud Cuckoo size sets comfortably. To ship it within the Toronto area using my own box would be about the same price factoring in the cost of a box. But this is a 25% or so discount on what it would be for shipping out West or East the usual way. I like the certainty for determining my Amazon list price. 

Ya they started that last year in Oct.

Canada post flat rate

Not available at locations near me yet.. :-(

Edited January 10, 20178 yr by dah_hunter

I just saw those boxes yesterday. Too bad they don't have longer boxes for the large box.

There are a couple caveats... such as the included liability insurance of $100 is also the maximum, one can't add more.  BUT if tracking doesn't show delivery by the standard estimate ie: local 1 day, regional 3 days, country wide 7 days (+2 days during Christmas period) you get a credit for the shipping cost.  Unfortunately you can only purchase a limited number of the boxes at a time, however; that may just be our location which is a private leased postal outlet rather than an official post office.

When you really run the numbers only the small box (at least, for example shipping from here in On to BC) is really worth the effort of holding an inventory of these boxes and you're only saving a few dollars... $$ vs Hassles kinda makes it a non-starter - but it's a great start and hopefully the pilot will expand further in the future.

Just used the medium sized box for my last Ecto 1 and that cost a grand total of $17.30. Definitely saved $5 or so on what it would have cost otherwise. 

So, I was printing a label on ebay today, and the price was coming up a full $1.32 more than normal. Thought it was a little suspect, so I did some digging. 

Turns out prices increased across the board today, January 16th. 

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/assets/pdf/business/parcel-rate-action-overview-2017_en.pdf

PDF says to share with the appropriate reps of my organization. So uh, here you go guys  

 

1 hour ago, Zelgazra said:

So, I was printing a label on ebay today, and the price was coming up a full $1.32 more than normal. Thought it was a little suspect, so I did some digging. 

Turns out prices increased across the board today, January 16th. 

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/assets/pdf/business/parcel-rate-action-overview-2017_en.pdf

PDF says to share with the appropriate reps of my organization. So uh, here you go guys  

 

This seems like a money grab.  Paypal doesn't require signature unless it is a much higher amount.

Domestic:
The purchase of the Signature option will be mandatory when the coverage value is $200 or more (Applicable Signature fee will be added to the Additional Liability Coverage feature)

 

 

Yea, saw that. Sucks cause I think in most cases I'll have to pass that charge to the buyer via the 'handling fee' option, which in turn will reduce traffic. Can't afford another 1.25% fee on most $200 sales

Edit: Mods, can we possibly merge the various CP threads into a master Canada Post Shipping thread?

I work at a small business and our postage meter went nuts because of this postal rate increase for today. I think everything went up in prices from letters to packages. The news used to make a huge deal on postage rate increase... I guess this is no longer news.

12 hours ago, YYZ said:

...The news used to make a huge deal on postage rate increase... I guess this is no longer news.

Pretty sure CP already said a couple years ago that standardized inflationary increases of 3-4% would occur every year on January 16th, their traditional end-of the Christmas backlog or something like that. 

On 7/16/2016 at 7:17 AM, Stragus said:

As far as I know, Canada Post really doesn't care what's in the bubble mailer as long as it's under 20mm thick.

I always drop them in a street letter box anyway, I only go to the postal counter for larger boxes.

I went to Canada Post this morning to see what it would cost to ship two minifigures in a bubble mailer. 20cm x 13cm @ 28g. It fit through the measure chart easily so it wasn't too thick but the lady looked inside the mailer (I didn't seal it yet) and said because the contents were letters, it would have to be shipped to the US as small packet or light packet (which would have cost $8.61). I'm going to print my own label at home as letter mail for $1.89 and cross my fingers.

5 minutes ago, KatoSwift said:

I went to Canada Post this morning to see what it would cost to ship two minifigures in a bubble mailer. 20cm x 13cm @ 28g. It fit through the measure chart easily so it wasn't too thick but the lady looked inside the mailer (I didn't seal it yet) and said because the contents were letters, it would have to be shipped to the US as small packet or light packet (which would have cost $8.61). I'm going to print my own label at home as letter mail for $1.89 and cross my fingers.

I had this happen, then I chose the CD mailer option, which costs slightly more but seems to get more leniency than the lettermail slot and have been using this ever since for minifigs and polybags. They even gave me a tracking number on a couple of them for the princely sum of one dollar and change.

so you can mail minifigs in bubble envelopes for only 1.89 to the US? I've always paid the small packet price which is $6.xx. I think and about $9 international.

Wait wait wait. So you are saying you are able to ship tu US using non-standard letter mail?

See here for reference.

https://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/prices/US.pdf

Says
1.20$ up to 30g
2.95 up to 100g

Hmm. Is it because my bubble envelope is heavier than 100g?

24 minutes ago, seapotato said:

so you can mail minifigs in bubble envelopes for only 1.89 to the US? I've always paid the small packet price which is $6.xx. I think and about $9 international.

Yup i've always shipped minifigs in bubble mailers to the US for around $2 Even polybags in bubble mailers works, sometimes multiple polybags in 1. Mind you once i did have the item returned due to insufficient funds, but the employee at the post office said it should not have been returned and re-sent it.

I've stopped recently though as it's easy for people to claim item not received, and I've had a couple doozies. Expensive figs/ polys are tracked from now on.

Edited January 23, 20178 yr by Sandwraith

23 minutes ago, seapotato said:

so you can mail minifigs in bubble envelopes for only 1.89 to the US? I've always paid the small packet price which is $6.xx. I think and about $9 international.

Possibly. YMMV. The guy that was helping me was measuring it and putting it through the measure chart and said it could be mailed as letter to US for $1.20 but then the lady beside him looked inside and said nope, there's non-letter contents so it's gotta go packet.

I'm going to take my chances and seal it and ship it. The worst thing that could happen is I lose $1.20 for postage if they return it.

2 minutes ago, Sandwraith said:

Yup i've always shipped minifigs in bubble mailers to the US for around $2 Even polybags in bubble mailers works, sometimes multiple polybags in 1. Mind you once i did have the item returned due to insufficient funds, but the employee at the post office said it should not have been returned and re-sent it.

I've stopped recently though as it's easy for people to claim item not received, and I've had a couple doozies. Expensive figs/ polys are tracked from now on.

I'm just starting out selling so I only have recent Disney minifigures so it's not expensive.

Hmm I always have to fill out the small packet form with the contents inside. Doesn't adding tracking to a small packet shoot up the price to more than $10-15?

I pay $1.89 for bubble mailer within Canada - that means I can get away with 85cents postage!?

Yup i've always shipped minifigs in bubble mailers to the US for around $2 Even polybags in bubble mailers works, sometimes multiple polybags in 1. Mind you once i did have the item returned due to insufficient funds, but the employee at the post office said it should not have been returned and re-sent it.
I've stopped recently though as it's easy for people to claim item not received, and I've had a couple doozies. Expensive figs/ polys are tracked from now on.

7 minutes ago, seapotato said:

Hmm I always have to fill out the small packet form with the contents inside. Doesn't adding tracking to a small packet shoot up the price to more than $10-15?

It does, but i pass that shipping cost on to buyers. No way i'm giving free shipping on a $15-$30 item. I can't remember the last time i shipped a minifig with no tracking, but it was probably still under $3 at the time. $2.36 rings a bell, but not sure.

I always ship with no tracking and cross my fingers. [emoji21]

So when you ship to us inside a bubble mailer, but choose letter non standard, you fill a custom form??

2 minutes ago, seapotato said:

I always ship with no tracking and cross my fingers.

I did that until i had one buyer blatantly falsely claim item not received. They tried to forcefully blame me for a whole bunch of ridiculous reasons, and it was quite obvious they were just trying to raise a stink so i'd suspect it was really lost. At least it was a free promo fig, Admiral Yularan i think.

No need to fill in a form if shipping within Canada. I put $1.80 on the bubble envelope and drop in the mail box.

If I'm mailing to US or international, I fill in the custom forms with contents and price.

No tracking for any of those.

So when you ship to us inside a bubble mailer, but choose letter non standard, you fill a custom form??