As Canada Post strike drags on, holiday shoppers turn to Amazon — and in-person purchases

It's been over two weeks since a nationwide strike of Canada Post workers began, with no end in sight to the ongoing negotiations.

And according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), about 80 per cent of small businesses in Canada normally rely on Canada Post for shipping goods, invoicing or receiving payments.

So with the holiday season fast approaching and the strike dragging on, a Calgary courier — along with its giant competitor, Amazon — is primed to pick up the local delivery slack.

Matthew Trapp is seeing the parcels continue to pile up at Deeleeo's Calgary warehouse.

"It is a bit tough to tell because this is normally the busy season regardless … but it has gotten a lot busier, a lot more commercial orders," said Trapp, who works as a distributor for the shipping company.

Deeleeo makes same-day deliveries to Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer and cities and towns in between, said Trapp.

"We've definitely seen an uptick in [delivery requests] for stuff like coffee companies and clothing."

Trapp says the majority of Deeleeo's clientele are local businesses, and the firm deals largely with smaller orders and packages.

He hopes the extra business will stick around even after the strike, and that the reliability of the company's same-day deliveries will win over new customers for good.

Other delivery services with heftier networks — especially Amazon — are also benefiting from the Canada Post strike, said Hossein Piri, assistant professor at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.

"[Amazon] has already built this [delivery] network and they are taking advantage of that. This is the advantage of having a resilient supply chain that is not impacted by any sort of a strike," Piri said.

"So definitely, yes, it is bigger for Amazon, but it doesn't mean that it is zero for the other players."

Amazon has distribution centres dotted around the province, a national pattern in part driven by a surge in demand for online shopping during the pandemic.

And that network of fulfilment and distribution centres makes the giant company an easy, dependable option for consumers, said Piri.

On the other hand, he said, the Canada Post strike could also have the opposite effect of the pandemic — driving some customers to do more shopping in person.

"In a nutshell, this strike has impacted supply chain networks as well as consumer behaviour," said Piri.

"If you go to the mall these days, it is full. People are [thinking] 'Should I go online? Maybe not, let's just do the shopping here in town.'"

The Calgary Chamber of Commerce issued a statement Monday calling for an immediate resolution to the strike to prevent further economic disruption. 

"We also encourage Calgarians to shop in-store where they can. This is not just a great way to explore the city, it is an investment in the community," said the chamber's vice-president of policy and external affairs, Ruhee Ismail-Teja.

"For every dollar spent at a small business, 66 cents on average stays local, compared to 11 cents when consumers shop at a large multinational business."

Canada Post presented the union on Sunday with a framework to reach a negotiated agreement in the dispute.

It says the plan includes proposals to bring greater flexibility to Canada Post's delivery model and shows "movement on other key issues" in the labour dispute.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says its negotiators are reviewing the proposal.