Postal Services Canada: How Do They Work and How to Maximize Effectiveness?
Have you ever thought about how the Canada postal service functions to deliver your items to the correct locations?
Well, the Post Office serves 17.2 million commercial and residential addresses. This Crown Corporation has 6,000 postal outlets nationwide, helping it transport envelopes, cards, and parcels, making it one of the top postal organizations globally!
How does this fact benefit you?
Imagine you run an eCommerce business and need to ship orders to thousands of delivery addresses weekly. The Canada postal services can enable you to deliver them to homes, offices, PO boxes, community mailboxes, and more!
Or imagine you work as an operations manager at an insurance company. Canada Post can help you ship regular notices, compliance letters, policy agreements, and other documents to clients without hassles.
This blog covers more about the postal services Canada and how you can benefit from them! We will also discuss tracking, shipping rates, and more.
Let us begin!
Canada Post: One of the Largest Postal Organizations in the World
Before we discuss how Canada Post operates, let us know the basics.
It was founded in 1867 as Royal Mail Canada to handle mailing deliveries across Canada.
Later, it got the name “Canada Post,” also known as Postes Canada in French.
The organization employs 64,000 people who help it process orders and complete deliveries within the specified time frame.
Also, remember that most postal services in Canada are affordable compared to other courier companies, like DHL and FedEx. This federal government-run institution allows individuals and businesses to send personal and commercial correspondence anywhere they need.
Its international shipping services are also excellent, enabling you to ship your mailers to any country within a few days.
Hence, Canada Post solves all your shipping needs at affordable rates, making sending offline mail a breeze.
What’s more?
You can pair postal services Canada with an automated direct mail API to do everything online, from preparing your mailers to printing and distribution! Businesses can transform offline communications while saving time, effort, and money.
How Does the Canada Postal Service Work?
Sending a parcel or letter via Canada Post is upfront and quick. But you must follow the guidelines properly to avoid getting mail returns or facing delivery delays.
Here is what you need:
- Decide what you want to send: You can mail standard and non-standard-sized items, including marketing mailers, documents, and parcels. The postal service Canada rates are different for all sizes and shapes, making keeping your mailers within the specified dimensions essential. Otherwise, you may need to pay surcharges.
- Buy packaging: Insert your letters or documents into secured envelopes that do not tear in transit. You don’t need to use them for sending postcards or self-mailers, which is why they are more affordable to ship. Use bubble wrap, bags, or boxes for packages, depending on the content you want to send.
- Label your items: Print and stick address labels on your mailers.
Ensure your labels are visible and do not create confusion. Also, you may wrap the labels with plastic tape when sending your items via the Canada Postal Service during the rains.
- Drop them in the mailbox: Once your items are good to go, drop them in a nearby mailbox or take them to the Post Office. Please remember that some Canada postal services, like Registered Mail, need you to visit the Post Office to lodge your items and get the mailing receipt with the tracking number.
Too much to do? Canada Post offers many shipping services to allow you to send something from point A to B. But you must complete many tasks before you drop off your items in the mailbox.
We have only covered a few points above. But you must also take care of the printing, affixing stamps, presorting, verifying delivery addresses, and more!
The solution?
Try PostGrid’s direct mail API to help you create, print, and ship items under the same roof. We allow you to send offline mailers via the Canada postal service by only pushing a few buttons on your computer. Simple, right?
Get a demo to learn more!
Best Postal Services Canada for Your Shipping Requirements
Canada Post offers many domestic mailing services with different prices, speeds, and features, letting you choose the ideal ones for your business.
You can use Priority Mail for the next-day shipping of urgent items. For instance, imagine you need to ship a time-critical sales letter or tax document. Priority Mail can help you achieve your goal, provided you drop off the mailer before the cut-off time.
It is the best and fastest Canada postal service, letting businesses make quick decisions and correspond with customers and third parties seamlessly.
Also, Priority Mail allows you to track your items and get delivery updates. There is an on-time delivery guarantee, meaning you can ask for a refund if a delay occurs.
Get liability coverage of up to $1,000 to cover losses and damages.
You can extend your coverage up to $5,000 for an extra fee.
Canada Post also offers more paid services, like collect on delivery, scheduled pickup, return to sender, and a hard copy of the recipient’s signature.
The second option is Xpresspost, which lets you ship items between one and two business days. It is almost the same as Priority Mail, with a few differences. For example, you must pay additional charges to ask the carrier to take the recipient’s signature when delivering items (a default feature of Priority Mail).
Hence, most companies ditch this Canada postal service and pay for Priority Mail instead, though slightly more expensive.
The best part is PostGrid lets you prepare and ship your items at the lowest rates. You don’t need to worry about choosing the most affordable shipping option to save money.
Since we work with many commercial printers and send items in bulk via the postal service Canada, we get many discounts and pass them down to our clients.
Can You Track Postal Services Canada?
Almost all of Canada Post’s domestic mailing services are trackable, helping you stay updated and follow up with your recipients on time.
They also offer an on-time delivery guarantee, except for the Regular Parcel option.
Get the tracking numbers when lodging your envelopes and packages at the Post Office. Keep the receipt safe as proof of mailing and track your items without issues.
The Post Office lets you track all postal services in Canada via its website. You can enter the tracking numbers one by one to get the status. Or enter up to 24 numbers separated by commas to save time.
The Canada postal service tracking usually has 16 numbers (like 1111 1111 1111 1111) or 13 alphanumeric characters (like AA 111 111 111 AA).
Also, you may use the reference number to know your item’s status.
If you send some items once every few weeks, the Canada Post website can be helpful!
But what happens when you need to mail hundreds and thousands of mailers?
Luckily, PostGrid’s direct mail services enable you to get a consolidated list of your sent mailers. You can view the status of all items at a glance, helping you save time and effort.
Also, you can access detailed delivery and campaign performance reports via your dashboard whenever needed.
How to Address Envelopes When Using the Canada Postal Service
Learning how to address envelopes to use the postal service Canada is crucial. It allows you to quickly and conveniently send letters without risking mail returns.
Please note that Canada Post processes your mailers using automated sorting equipment. These machines read your addresses from the bottom up.
Hence, you must use the correct format and write your delivery addresses in legible handwriting for the machines to pick up. Or print them to avoid the information getting scrubbed off during transit.
Below is a Canada Post address example for your reference:
Jessica Montana
78-12 De Grassi ST
Toronto ON M4M 2K6
It is the standard mailing address format for sending something via postal services Canada. Ensure you always add the recipient’s full name on the first line to get your mailers in the right hands.
Write the company’s name on the second line when shipping commercial items, like B2B contracts, invoices, statements, marketing items, and more.
The third line has the civic number and street address. Please use the correct spellings and street abbreviations to avoid the postal employees manually sorting your mailers and speeding up deliveries.
The last line has the city name, province or territory, and the postal code.
Avoid adding anything beyond this information unless mailing internationally, when you must write the country’s name toward the end.
If you don’t want to remember domestic and international mailing formats for using Canada postal services, use PostGrid’s direct mail services. You can create your letters, postcards, cheques, statements, and other items online without worrying about these things.
Sending Your Printed Mailers Online With PostGrid
Businesses from healthcare, insurance, financial services, retail, and other industries can use PostGrid’s direct mail solutions to send their mailers online.
They can rely on our automated platform, which uses state-of-the-art technology to combine offline mail with online features to facilitate the process and save money.
One of our clients in the retail industry was confused about using postal services Canada to send regular marketing postcards. They wanted a solution that could assist them in printing the items and cutting unnecessary expenses.
Hence, they contacted PostGrid to discuss their needs and seek solutions. Here’s how it went:
The challenge: The company wanted to reduce printing costs and improve quality. It struggled with finding reputed printers that offered reasonable prices but helped it maintain consistency.
Creating postcard artwork according to the Canada postal service guidelines was also challenging.
Our client needed something reliable and flexible that enabled them to simplify mailings and save money.
How PostGrid helped: PostGrid’s all-in-one direct mail solutions allowed them to create postcards using our pre-built template. They could experiment with and customize designs with their brand’s logo and images.
PostGrid ensures your items fit the Canada Post guidelines to avoid paying the extra fee.
Also, our printing partners helped the company produce high-quality and professional-looking postcards without going anywhere or negotiating rates with numerous vendors.
They could make a few selections on our platform and place their orders for any number of postcards. And we would handle the tasks on their behalf, resolving their challenges.
PostGrid offered the company many more features, like
- Choosing between different Canada postal services
- Variable data printing
- Address verification
- Metadata tagging
- Real-time tracking
- Campaign analytics
- PIPEDA compliance
The outcome: The company could send thousands of postcards to its targeted audience within a few days without extensive planning or wasting time.
It integrated our direct mail API into its HubSpot account to send the mailers directly from its system. The process was seamless and quick, helping our client launch their first campaign the same day as the setup.
Our 2-business day SLA lets them use postal services Canada without waiting days or weeks to prepare and print their items.
Click here to learn more about the Canada postal service and how PostGrid’s automated mailing solutions can help you use it!
Also Read: What Is Print Advertising and Why Do You Need it?
