Well here we are again in the busy shopping season, in the throws of yet another Canada Post strike. Except – surprise! – we got no notice of this one so I have many outgoing and incoming parcels (including necessary supplies) stuck in transit indefinitely. I am trying not to be irritated about things that are not within my control here, but I am growing increasingly frustrated with the options for shipping my products. I am still able to ship with Stallion Express and ChitChats within Canada, AND to the US, but the ChitChats plugin has been broken for a month with no resolution in sight. Something to do with the API for the new tariff codes. I am about to go disable all the CP options and re-enable the Stallion Express choices so I can finally get some options available for customers in the USA. Etsy is still rolling however, so please do feel free to purchase through my Etsy shop if you are having a hard time here.
I understand postal union members have to do what they have to do, but for everyone’s sake I hope they are back to work sooner rather than later. Whether I will resume shipping with them within Canada (convenient, relatively affordable) or remain solely with alternative carriers (less convenient, more affordable) in future remains to be seen. Shipping to the States with CP is probably out forever unless the tariffs change yet again, since they don’t let you send duty free (even on qualifying duty free products) for reasons I do not fully understand.
Online selling for small handmade businesses is changing, that’s for sure. A few years ago it was not even a difficult situation, just pop it in the mail and move on. I’ve never been really into the local handmade market circuit as it turns out the people who most want to buy my items are not necessarily local to me, and of course this problem is not unique to my shop. I’m going to keep sending things out however I can for as long as I can, and if that means 45 more apps and some paperwork then so be it, ha!
Thanks for reading if you made it this far!
-Heather