Nunavummiut from several communities say they’re reeling from suddenly losing access to free Amazon shipping after Canada Post put an end to a loophole customers utilized to access the service.
For years, residents of small Nunavut communities shipped their Amazon orders to fake postal codes as a way to save hundreds of dollars a year on food and supplies. While these products are available at local grocery stores, their prices are significantly higher due to the cost of Northern transportation.
Iqaluit is the only community in Nunavut which qualifies for free shipping with Amazon Prime.
But last month, Canada Post began enforcing its long-held return-to-sender policy for any misaddressed mail. Because those Amazon shipments were addressed to incorrect and fake postal codes, dozens of Amazon orders have been sent back to the company — even after being flown in to local post offices.
Agreed that pricing is something that needs to be addressed, but subsidizing individual orders through Canada Post isn’t a good solution. Better to subsidize bulk shipping to the local stores to bring down the price at the shelf. That’d get residents a better return for the amount of subsidy spent.
I agree. Sadly, I think it’s poorly implemented right now.
I’d have to find the news article about it, but I’m pretty sure this program exists already. I think an external study on the program shows that the Northwest Company is pocketing something like 60% of the subsidy for Northern grocers and only passing on 40% of the value to lower consumer prices. I saw this article perhaps 6 months ago? Let me go looking.
E: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/rising-food-prices-canada-north-1.7122481
From this article, I got the numbers backward: 60% goes to consumers but 40% goes missing.
Northern grocers are horrifying. Don’t need a study to tell me that. Food handling and storage rules? If they are convenient, or if they get a heads up that the inspector is coming (and they get a big heads up on that, because the inspectors need somewhere to stay, plus they probably hit everyone else up on the way). If the item you are after is anything popular or in demand, it’s 2x-4x the price anywhere else is paying.
It’s hard to organize bulk shipping in normal locations. It’s absolutely a dumpster fire in some of these northern communities. The one I lived in, the bulk shipping guy was notoriously unreliable. You just can’t risk it sometimes, especially when it comes to anything of value or that has a shelf life. Buddy goes on a two week long bender in Edmonton on the way and meanwhile you and half the community are absolutely fucked waiting for whatever you are getting. Amazon meanwhile wants to charge you twice what the price is for the item to ship it, because Canada Post absolutely bends them over too. And they are pretty unreliable as well. It gets there when it gets there. Might be two days, might be two months. It’s not always an easy problem to solve, even with bulk orders.