Canada Post bumps price of stamps by 37%; mail delivery descends further into irelevance

Business struggling? Fewer customers using your services? Looking for a solution to a society that is trending away from the niche your company offers?

The answer is obvious: Bump prices by 37 per cent.

This and other lessons on how to run a business brought to you by Canada Post, which enacted on Monday a comparably massive increase in the cost of stamps.

The price of a booklet of "permanent" stamps jumps from 63 cents per stamp to 85 cents this week, as part of a massive restructuring implemented by the mail service to combat a changing marketplace.

"For $0.85, a customer can have a letter delivered across Canada, the world’s second-largest country, in four business days," states a Canada Post alert. "A letter can be delivered within a province in three business days and within a city in two business days. This requires a costly, complex and customer-focused operation."

And if you don't buy your stamps in bulk? The cost of buying a single stamp is now $1. So prepare those stories you’ll one day tell your grandchildren about a time when you could mail a letter for less than a dollar. (Be sure to have an answer ready for when they ask you what a "letter" is.)

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Interestingly, the fact that fewer and fewer people use stamps is being used by Canada Post as an example of why it's no big deal that the price is going up.

In a news release announcing the increase, Canada Post states, "The typical Canadian household buys fewer than two stamps per month which means an estimated additional household cost of less than $5 per year."

Also, the purchase of $1 single stamps only represents about two per cent of all stamps purchased. So, again, no one should notice the difference.

Canadians – or those who noticed, anyway – took to social media to express their frustration with the increased prices.

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Along with the increased cost of stamps, the price of various business services will increase on Monday, which Canada Post says will cost an estimated $55 per year to an average small business.

The price bump in one peg in a five-point strategy to address waning Canada Post profits, which also includes reducing the number of Canada Post employees and ending door-to-door mail delivery in urban centres.

An estimated 6,000 to 8,000 positions are to be phased out as employees retire, and community mailboxes are already being introduced in Calgary and Ottawa, among other cities.

To be fair, save for the occasional bill or subscription renewal, mail has become a niche service. Mailing letters has become a novelty, something most people do because they expect the receiver will "get a kick" out of getting an actual letter in the mail.

So why would the cost of mail increase when society no longer relies on it, fewer people us it and it is notably less efficient than the digital alternative?

The same reason why buying vinyl records is so expensive. People aren't buying the quality of the service, but the memory of what it once meant. A dollar may seem like a lot to mail a letter, but as the cost of nostalgia? It’s very reasonable.

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