How The Canada Post Lockout Affected Vintage Hockey Card Sales On eBay

“I still haven’t received the hockey cards I bought off you!”

An eBay vintage hockey card seller’s nightmare. Although normally very seldom heard, due to the Canada Post labour dispute that lasted for most of the month of June, 2011, it has become more and more common.

This is a bit of a rant – we’ll be back to strictly talking about vintage hockey cards very soon!

There are really three stages to the Canada Post disaster. 1. The pre-lockout rotating strike. 2. The lockout. 3. The post lockout backlog. The pre-lockout consisted of a period of rotating strikes that were meant to slow things down a bit but deliveries would still get through. This stage of the game was an inconvenience for people in certain cities but really didn’t have a major effect.

The full lockout came on June 16 with a promise by the Government of Canada to bring a swift end through back to work legislation. The swift end lasted nearly two weeks as the pro-union NDP opposition, led by Jack Layton, fought (against the will of the majority of Canadians) to extend the labour dispute. The major problem for sellers during this time was the promise of swift action. Canadian eBayers continued to list with the false hope of the dispute only lasting a few days and, essentially, giving postal workers an extended long weekend.

Stage three began on June 28, after the postal workers were finally legislated back to work. They were met by a huge backlog of undelivered mail. To add to the mail woes, the 28th was a Tuesday and Friday was Canada Day. Therefore, the first week back was only a three-day week.

What has this meant to me?

1. A barrage of enquiries as to where people’s cards are.

2. Delays in incoming cards (including a 1950’s Gump Worsley that I will be doing an article on soon – stay tuned, it should be a good one…).

3. Potential refunds as the time between purchase and delivery heads south of thirty days.

4. Compensation to customers (ie. future discounts and credits) for the delays (not a requirement by eBay but a requirement by anyone at all concerned with true customer satisfaction).

5. Potential loss of American customers. For the two week period, USPS would not even accept Canadian bound mail. Thus, the message was sent out that mailing to and from Canada is a risky venture.

Why did this happen? Greed. A refusal of an essential government run service to adapt to a rapidly changing world. A newly elected leader of the opposition in a majority government that believes he is actually the Prime Minister and that people are behind him (Jack, if you’re a hockey card collector, no hard feelings).

Let’s hope it never happens again…