June 4th 2020 - More and more delays at Canada Post and Purolator

The data coming out of the week of May 24 confirms it yet again: delays are piling up and carriers are not catching up.

As you know, Buster Fetcher tracks all shipments made by its clients’ businesses and helps them claim refunds for all late deliveries. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis in Canada, carriers have suspended their on-time delivery guarantees, which means that refunds cannot be claimed.

Still, Buster Fetcher continues to monitor the situation through shipment tracking and data analysis. The week of May 24 was no better than the previous weeks, as the infographics here will show.

FAR FROM THE NORMAL AVERAGES

Based on the week of March 15 – a ‘normal’ week, so to speak – that is, just before Canada Post suspended its on-time delivery guarantee, the carrier had an average delivery delay on 7.38% of all packages, calculated on the CP’s standard delivery timeline.

Since March 15, that figure has soared to 39.52% in the week of May 24. At Purolator, the percentage went from 2.78% to 29.71% during the same time frame.

NOT SO ENVIOUS RECORDS

The worst performance observed among our clients was 91.12% of delays out of 200 shipments. Nothing to be proud of, you will no doubt agree! Purolator’s poorest figure is 50.29%, a percentage just as discouraging for online merchants who work hard to get everything right but then have to deal with customer dissatisfaction due to late deliveries.

We should however highlight the positive: one of our clients had a 10.79% delay on 500 packages (although that figure was at 0% in the week of March 15).

AVERAGE DELAY IN DAYS INCREASING AND VARIATIONS BETWEEN PROVINCES

It’s also interesting to analyze late deliveries by the average number of days late. This figure too has been steadily increasing up to an average of 2.6 days during the week of May 24. The worst performance for one of our clients is a whopping 47 days!

Delays are not homogeneous across the country: Nova Scotia holds on to the worst record as a province with 89.13% of packages delivered late, whereas British Columbia reports the ‘least bad’ performance with 21.23% of its packages delivered late.

QUESTIONS RAISED

Seeing as, in some cases, the percentage of shipments delivered late doubled the very week the guarantee was suspended (at Purolator, for example), one may wonder if that was the best measure to take to cope with the crisis.

Many merchants count on these guarantees and the refunds these guarantees allow, and in a time of crisis like this one, no doubt such refunds would have helped them to deal with financial losses incurred due to the crisis.

All in all, we could argue that we as consumers and all the businesses dealing with the very carriers that drive our economy would benefit from seeing the guarantees reinstated! Meanwhile, businesses have to take it upon themselves to face the consequences of late deliveries, without any financial compensation.

Could it be that COVID-19 has become an overused excuse by carriers to explain their backlogs? What else could carriers do or what other adjustments could be done to better deal with the crisis? Could it be that suspending the guarantees has in fact contributed to increasing delays, simply because there is no more accountability?

All the while, entrepreneurs still have to render accounts to their customers…

Would you like to find out more about the data from the week of May 24, 2020? Check out our infographics and watch our Facebook Live from June 3, 2020.  

Summary:

The data coming out of the week of May 24 confirms it yet again: delays are piling up and carriers are not catching up. From March 15 to the week of May 24, Canada Post’s delivery delays soared to 39.52% of all parcels. At Purolator, the percentage went from 2.78% to 29.71% during the same time frame.

* Statistics are based on Buster Fetcher’s analysis of shipments made by its customers across Canada (almost 1000) who ship across the country and internationally. Though there may be discrepancies with official data released by the carriers themselves, our statistics still help paint the portrait of the situation in this time of crisis.

LAST WEEKS UPDATES

• Status of deliveries in Canada: Week of June 28th 2020
• Status of deliveries in Canada: Week of June 21th 2020
• Week June 14, 2020 - Great improvement for Purolator and another decline for Canada Post
• Week June 7, 2020 - Great improvement for Purolator and another decline for Canada Post
• Week of May 31, 2020: Purolator improving, Canada Post regressing
• Week May 17th 2020 - First signs of improvement in delivery times since March 15 at Canada Post and Purolator*
• Week May 10th 2020 - Late deliveries piling up at Canada Post and Purolator since the beginning of the crisis*
• Week May 3rd 2020 - A steady increase in Canada Post and Purolator shipping delays since the beginning of April