AKA… EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT [CANADIAN] SHIPPING!
Hey there shop-owning merchant of the online persuasion, are you CANADIAN and getting ready to SHIP out your very first online purchase from your fancy little online webstore?
(Say yes)
PERFECT. Let’s talk about what happens AFTER that!
PACKING YOUR PRODUCT
Alright so I know many of us are concerned about the environment these days and this is the perfect place to really start thinking about what you can do about minimising your own impact where possible. There’s no perfect solution but there are some steps you can take to help yourself.
FIRST OFF… when you’re searching for eco-friendly alternatives, here are some things I’ve learned.
HELL YEAH
COMPOSTABLE
Preferably any item that can be put into household compost is ideal here since it can be decomposed into the dirt and help fuel our planet yay!
PAPER
A lot of countries are making efforts to minimize plastic usage, where possible, opt for paper-padded envelopes vs bubble mailers.
RECYCLED
Where possible always look for recycled materials. Many shipping companies offer both recycled paper and plastic options.
LOCAL
Where possible opt local! It reduces your carbon footprint and will likely be WAY LESS EXPENSIVE in the long run because it’ll be in your currency heh;;
AVOID
BIODEGRADEABLE
Most companies will tout this one, all it means is it will degrade … into microplastics… so, yeah your polymailers won’t exactly STAY in a landfill but ehhh.
PLASTIC
Your envelopes are going to be single-use for most of your buyers. Opt for plant-based compostable options.
VIRGIN
This is just a terrible way to say folks made this shit from raw materials instead of sourcing a re-usable method.
ULINE
Fucking assholes. They might have the biggest name in the game but avoid spending on bigots for our sake, please.
That’s all good and well, but what do WE actually use? Good question~
REUSE
Admittedly any boxes and shipping materials we get from: ordering product, stock, personal online orders, you name it, we keep it in case it comes handy. Not only does it save us on some cash but man does all that stuff save our asses in a pinch. For those saying you don’t have space to keep it, trust me, you do. We’ve kept all kinds of stuff in a 3 & 1/2 apt downtown. Its hectic but it sure beats buying if we’ve already got stuff to use. I’ve NEVER had to buy box filler. Just keep what you get and use that! It doesn’t have to be pretty it just has to get your item to your shopper in one piece! Preferably undamaged!
REFILLS
Sometimes you need specialty boxes/items/you just don’t order enough online. Here are a few places we’ve bought our stuff from…and/or heard about and seem to have a pretty decent reputation:
MONTREAL/QC
These guys ship all over CANADA but they’re located right in our backyard! We used their compostable polymailers for our dino loaf campaign and they…. sure smell funny and feel pretty weird but they got the job done! I don’t know if i’d recommend their packaging for international orders but it worked well for CAN/US-based orders!
CANADA
Hey! I only just learned about these guys but they seem like an excellent Canadian alternative to ECOENCLOSE (no harsh on those guys, WOLFPACK is just local)!
(You might see: FRIENDLY MAILER pop up in your search… D2W plastic is biodegradable… which means it’ll become microplastics… if its not legal in the EU likely its not actually ECO-friendly.)
USA/INTL
I loooove these guys but they’re located outside of CANADA (US) and our dollar/exchange is really no good… plus these guys always cost us in UPS broker fees (at least $80 per order in EXTRA shipping costs) so we’ve had to look for alternatives. Their blog is really insightful on packaging & proper eco practices though!
There are a lot of things to keep in mind here, honestly, do what you can with what’s available to you. Prioritise paper products, those almost always can be tossed in home recycling containers at the very least. Paper-type products also keep you in most of the EU’s good graces when you DO choose to ship overseas vis-a-vis their packaging laws. When in doubt:
REDUCE > REUSE > RECYCLE
OKAY ENOUGH ABOUT PACKAGING… here’s where things get a bit more CANADA-precise. We’re going to be talking a lot about CANADA POST~!
CANADA POSTAGE
This is a Canada-Post-Appreciative space. I personally think its a public right to get to mail shit around the globe… fuck UPS/FEDEX those guys are clowns. (Sorry to the people who work for those companies…I know you get paid scraps but you also manage to destroy/lose/launch my packages anywhere but where I need them to be SOMEHOW).
I have special animosity towards UPS… but we’re not gonna talk about that here.
Also like, the Canada Posties are some of the coolest hardworking folks out there. If you’re a Canada Postie reading this, you fucking rule!!
Also CANADA POST offers a lot of really cool nifty things for small business owners and I’m going to give you a quick tour of them all (or otherwise toss you some links you can check out with MORE info)!
SNAP SHIP
This is the ESSENTIAL tool of a small business owner. You make an account with CANADA POST online and you can make and print your labels at home so all you need to do is scamper off to the nearest post office and mail your parcel out. Which, nowadays is not exactly the most exciting development (and admittedly their tools are still… archaic at best) BUT–
Mail enough orders/parcels out and you rack up savings discounts per package shipped and the threshholds are honestly not too difficult to reach if you’re a growing online business!
IF YOU SPEND UP TO:
- $2499 you get 45% off your postage
- $2500-4999 you get 50% off your postage
- $5000-7499 you get 53% off your postage
- $7500+ you get 58% off your postage
It’s pretty huge especially when you’re shipping internationally!
SNAP SHIP has a lot of really cool options (and CANDA POST itself has an incredible amount of helpful tools) so I’m going to highlight the ones that really stand out & sell this system for us:
FLEX DELIVERY
So you know how your address pretty much has to appear on every single package you ship with SNAP SHIP for ~legal~ reasons (and so they can send your packages back if they don’t meet their destination). But I know a lot of us are a bit worried about privacy & safety, considering the way the internet is built today. WELL. Canpost offers this thing called FLEX DELIVERY which is FREE. You sign up online and pick the nearest post office as your delivery point and then get them to register you using your ID in person at that post office. It’s pretty smooth sailing after that. You can change your business address on your SNAP SHIP to your FLEX DELIVERY address and voila! Privacy gained!
PARCEL PICKUP
This has been our newest lifesaver! You can log into your SNAP SHIP account and book a parcel pick up via your local Canada Postie. You can schedule dates and times for pick up and the pickup itself is under $5 for just about 50 packages under 22kg!
MY ONE NOTE with PP is that if you have a flex delivery address on your account, you will have to schedule the pickup using their tool. Otherwise you CAN schedule a pickup right after you make your labels but that pickup will be locked in to the business address provided with the labels (ie: your post office of choice) with their pickup tool you can change the address to your personal address for pick up instead.
ANOTHER THING OF NOTE…. (because it took us a while to figure this out) — don’t forget to adjust your settings for your label printer, otherwise Canada Post will print your label with each personal receipt. You’ll want to follow these steps:
- Go to your SNAP SHIP account
- In the top toolbar: Click on SHIPPING > SHIPPING TOOL
- Click on ACCOUNT PREFERENCES
- Click on LABEL PRINTING
- Toggle on: THERMAL PRINTING
It took us FOREVER to find this thing, ourselves until someone in a server told us how to do it and it’s saved our butts since.
MARKETING
This is the last thing to highlight. I’ve picked and poked around on this but essentially CANADA POST offers mail marketing campaigns where you can send out fliers to targeted areas locally! I feel like nobody knows about this and that it’s actually accessible to anyone with a business account! We haven’t used it yet because its a little bit outside of our budget these days but it’s definitely been in the brain for a while! Works best if you run a brick & mortar I think!
LABEL PRINTERS
The last thing you all probably have questions about are LABEL PRINTERS… I honestly don’t really know much myself. We bought the most accessible one which wound up being an L+H printer and it works well on eco/compostable labels and on regular labels as well. It’s hardy. I like it. I’d recommend it, sure!
I’ve heard folks also use MUNBYN and swear by it’s flexibility so if you’re shopping around, consider comparing the two!
THAT’S ALL I GOT FOR NOW! GET SHIPPING!
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