Rising profits or closing brick and mortar stores: the impact of the ongoing Canada Post strike

Most local businesses have found alternative ways to ship their products to customers during the Canada Post strike.

Wednesday marked Day 20 in the strike.

ShipNerd Inc., a third-party online delivery platform, who works exclusively with UPS across Canada, is profiting big.

“I'd say business is up 40 per cent,” said Asaf Klein, ShipNerd Inc. owner.

Klein says couriers can offer various forms of delivery but there are some limitations.

"There's some things that only Canada Post can deliver like P.O. boxes and extremely rural addresses,” added Klein. “To ship an envelope with the courier it’s going to cost $10, whereas with Canada Post it’s $0.50.”

According to Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), to date, small and medium-sized businesses lost an $1billion dollars to the ongoing labour dispute.

“This is really killing us,” said Ruth Hoang, owner of Foxwood Gifts, located on Wyandotte Street East. She ships 20 to 50 packages per day.

“Every package that goes out, we're just having to eat ten, $15 per package. That really adds up,” added Hoang.

Klein said peoples’ perspectives are skewed when it comes to shipping costs.

“We sometimes talk to customers, and they're baffled by the fact that it costs $10 or $15 to ship a package from here to Vancouver.”

Hoang describes the Canada Post strike as a nail in the coffin.

“We're going to be moving out of our space and getting rid of our retail shop and going back to our home basement workshop.”

She was also forced to let go of her employee.

A key issue in bargaining has been a push to expand parcel deliveries into the weekend.

Negotiations between Canada Post and the union are still on hold.