Winnipeg small business owners take delivery into their own hands as Canada Post strike drags on

Dave Hanson, founder of the Sage Garden Greenhouses, is delivering his customers' orders by hand, bundling packages and dropping them door-by-door ahead of the holidays. 

Orders from the small business would normally be shipped to customers via Canada Post. However, the strike by more than 55,000 employees at the Crown corporation has forced Hanson and other Winnipeg shops to find alternatives so customers can get their orders on time.

"It's a double-edged sword," Hanson said. "To go and personally deliver, it's a joy, it was a pleasure. It's something we'll continue to do, but it certainly isn't a cost-effective solution for delivery."

Hanson has hand-delivered around 30 Christmas package orders in the last few weeks, going to "every corner in the city" on three delivery drives. 

Before the holidays, Hanson normally anticipates having close to 100 packages sent out to customers via mail. 

"There's a 70 per cent difference there," he said, a significant gap in revenue at a key time of the year for sales. 

"It just reflected in people's uncertainty about what's going to happen if they hit add to cart and check out, and then it ends up in the mail stream."

Hand delivery has also been a "costly endeavour" overall, taking hours away from other aspects of running the business, Hanson said. 

However, dropping off the orders is one of the few alternatives he has left to make sure it gets done effectively. 

The service offered by other couriers has been overwhelmed since the start of the strike, and some of them don't offer letter delivery, an "affordable" mail alternative for small businesses, Hanson said. 

"When a key player like Canada Post is out of commission for a certain amount of time … there's lots of ripples," he said. 

Eric Hetherington, co-owner of Bear Face General Store, a local art store on Osborne Street, said managing shipments and deliveries during the strike hasn't been easy. 

Even with the majority of purchases done in-store, Hetherington said the business decided to start delivering some of their orders within the city on Friday.

"[It's] just like necessity … obviously the holiday season is big for sales in general," he said.