An online shipping company says UPS and Purolator have told it to freeze orders with their transporters as the companies face high volumes due to the Canada Post strike.
An email from eShipper, a platform offering shipping solutions to vendors, to Quebec-based bakery Félix and Norton, which was shared with True North, informed the bakery that “due to the postal strike and peak season shipping volumes” causing backlogs and large volumes of shipping, Purolator and UPS have “requested” that shipping be paused for 48 hours.
“We have been notified by Purolator to temporarily disable all Purolator services on the eShipper platform for the next 48 hours. This now means both UPS & Purolator will be disabled on the platform for the next 48 hours due to an overload in their network, requiring time to clear the backlog,” the Thursday morning email from eShipper said.
It said that Purolator and all domestic UPS services would not process or move shipments for 48 hours starting Wednesday.
A previous email sent out Wednesday afternoon said that Purolator was implementing a daily limit of 1,500 shipments for the next 24 hours, but by Thursday, it became a complete halt for both companies.
“This is going to impact a lot of customers who rely on, you know, the top carriers in Canada to deliver their packages across the country,” Imtiaz Kermali, the VP of sales and marketing at eShipper told True North in an interview.
He said the companies “noted the additional packages that have come to their network” and the “shopping frenzy” of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which added to the two shipping companies’ capacity constraints.
“It’s a culmination of the postal strike, as well as the busiest time of the year and e-commerce growing year on year; from 2023 to 2024, we’re just seeing an increased number of parcels in the process and in the economy right now,” he said.
Kermali empathized with the couriers and said eShipper does not want to overburden them before peak shipping season starts in the next two weeks. He expressed confidence eShipper would still be able to serve its customers because it uses multiple carriers, but even so, it raised an alarm about the implications of the halt.
“Anytime we did get to a point like this, which I would call really a national disaster, we’re able to provide our customers with complete continuity in their shipping experience,” Kermali said, noting that eShipper may have been targeted because of the volume of goods it manages.
“I think what the carriers are doing is they have targeted their largest shippers and resellers like ourselves, where they think that they will probably be able to get the best package reduction if they were to restrict or disable services. I think they’ve picked and chosen specific partners in the industry where they feel that they’ll probably be able to get the best effect if they were to freeze or disable.”
Purolator initially denied it was restricting service, but when provided with statements from eShipper, it revised its position, saying that due to severe weather and a “significant” increase in volume, it was experiencing service disruptions.
“We recently made the decision to temporarily pause service to some select partners, including third-party platforms. This was necessary to maintain the integrity of our network, ensure the health and safety of our employees and allow us to prioritize critical shipments,” a Purolator spokesperson told True North in an email.
“We are assessing the condition of our network hourly and will make all attempts to remove the service suspension as soon as possible.”
Félix and Norton COO Simon Paquin took to X to call on Canada’s political leaders to stop the Canada Post strike.
“We only use Purolator, so now that the daily limit has been reached, people can’t check out anymore on our website,” Paquin posted before eShipper told him of the complete freeze.
He expressed concern that Purolator has “zero incentives” to push to end the strike, noting that Canada Post owns 91% of the shares in the company.
A self-described entrepreneur posted in the thread on X, claiming that his company also had to stop shipping from Purolator for a time.
UPS did not respond to True North’s requests for comment.