The Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament had to suspend its online sales of promotional items due to the Canada Post strike, resulting in losses of $50,000 for the organization.
• Also read: Strike at Canada Post: “Both parties are in the wall,” notes a labor relations specialist
• Also read: Conflict at Canada Post: why do Purolator and FedEx charge $45 and $60 to send a letter?
• Also read: Conflict between Canada Post and the union: “They may be shooting themselves in the foot,” says a lawyer
“Basically, we closed our online stores because the orders were coming in, we couldn’t deliver them until we looked,” explains the general director of the tournament, Patrick Dom.
Partial resumption of deliveries
The organization has since resumed online sales for orders from within the country, but with additional costs and longer lead times.
For international shipments, the situation remains problematic.
“When we send to Europe or the United States, the cost that the person pays for [la livraison]if we do business with another carrier, it will double or triple,” underlines Mr. Dom.
Creative solutions
Faced with these prohibitive costs, the general manager himself went to a post office in Maine to ship American orders.
“We had a lot of packages that were here, that were heading to the United States, a lot of badges. The players are proud to participate in the pee-wee tournament, so we went ourselves last Wednesday to Jackman, Maine,” he says.
The organization now fears ending up with excess inventory.
“We are following last year’s sales to order our items for this year. And there, if we don’t sell them, we know what will happen after the tournament. We’re going to be stuck with it,” concludes Mr. Dom.
The 55,000 Canada Post workers have been on strike since November 15.
Since then, all letter and parcel delivery services have been suspended.
*This text, generated with the help of artificial intelligence, was reviewed and validated by our team based on an interview carried out at QUB.
