Wednesday 3 June 2015

Canada Post FlexDelivery: Early Review

In early May 2015, Canada Post introduced a new parcel delivery feature which has been dubbed FlexDelivery. It is simple enough and cheap enough – it’s free – that it can easily attract a huge following among online shoppers… IF it works.
Don’t get me wrong. It works but only 50%. At least that is the case in my experience.
FlexDelivery is very similar to buying a mailbox in your local post office but it’s free and it has better perks.
  • You sign up for FlexDelivery online at www.canadapost.ca.
  • You choose post offices that you would like to pick up your parcels at. You get a different address for you for each post office. Each address will have a P.O. Box in it.
  • Instead of your own address, you use one of your post office addresses for receiving parcels.
  • Once your parcel is at the post office ready to be picked up, you get an email alert.
I am of the view that for FlexDelivery to work two things have to happen.
  1. Your parcel has to get to your chosen post office. CHECK
  2. You should be able to pick up your package at that post office. MEH
To be able to pick up your package at the post office you should be notified first that it is there. You see, in my case, I never did get that notification that was supposed to be emailed to me.

I checked my email daily, kind of obsessively, to no avail. Called Canada Post a couple times. They gave me no reason FlexDelivery might be at fault.

Finally, one day, I walked into my local post office and poured my heart out. The little old lady at the counter looked at my ID, without saying anything, walked into the storage room behind her and came out with a parcel with my name on it. It was revealed to me that the much coveted package had been there for an entire week.

I called Canada Post and inquired as to why I had not received any emails as promised by their website. I have been told that I am the first person, who has had problem with email feature of FlexDelivery.

Now I am thinking I am probably the first person who has signed up for FlexDelivery. I never signed up to be a beta tester of a pilot project.

Did I mention you have to persuade your shipper to use regular mail and not one of the couriers like Purolator, UPS, FedEx or DHL?


See also:

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wanted to try out the Flexdelivery system with something cheap from China. Glad I did. When my package seemed to be due, and having not had any messages from Canada Post, I went to the post office. The postal worker had no clue what I was talking about and hadn't heard of the service. After making calls to "head office". He said I will get a email message when the package arrives. After waiting a a few more weeks, I decided to check the senders site for info. I entered the China post tracking number in Canada post system and voila, it worked to show me that my package had been delivered to my post office (around the time I visited the post office) and on the the same day it arrived they sent it back because the recipient could not be located. It seems they didn't know what to do with the address. Not sure I want to both with this system, at least not until the kinks are worked out.

Anonymous said...

YOU are NOT the first and only one !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I purchased something from Amazon.ca and waited for it since Sept-2015 till now Nov-15-2015, but nothing shows up ( no e-mail notifications). I did not realize that the item's was shipped back to China "Twice" after contacting the seller.

My local RPO (a Shoppers Drug Mart postal outlet. NOTE: they are not owned by Canada Post)argues that it was either Canada Post's mailman's fault or lousy service of Chinese Postal office's fault. ( It was through USPS). That person @ Shopper's drug mart said that a lot of people don't know that FlexDeilvery is only accepting products from Canada or US. ( Seriously?????? Does that mean we are being misled). They (RPO) even gave me a fake Canada Post ticket number ( never exists in the system) to brush me off. In the meantime, I had to call Customer service line several time and finally a REAL ticket's open. Now what i can do is to wait for Canada Post investigation's response.

What a torture to get an online order.

Anonymous said...

Again here. I ordered a few items from China, to my flex delivery RPO at my convenient grocery store. Without getting an email, I popped in while getting some grocery, and low and behold, 2 packages waiting for me. Then the chaos of Christmas began and, seeing as the tracking info hadn't changed to say it was in my county, I forgot about it. Come the new year, I pop in to the grocery store to be informed that the package Sat in the back for two weeks and they returned it to China, claiming I didn't come pick it up after all the delivery notices. Which according to the clerk, would have been left on my front door, to which I replied, by asking her the tell me what is associated with my flex delivery address. Her response was that they only have my name, and that when they enter the package as received, it automatically generates an email to me. I then asked how a delivery notices could have been put on my door if they couldn't even see my email address. Her response was a blank look and a piecy of paper with Canada Post's phone number on it. I have since stopped using flex delivery and now make the postal carrier fill out the delivery notice and wait another day. It would seem that the FedEx, UPS, flex delivery equivalents are working alot better, from all research I have read. The concept works in theory, but Canada Post needs go figure a lot of things out before I go back to it. As a side note, I have also stopped using their phone app, and started removing the Epost mailers that I have with them. The company seems to be imploding.

Scott said...

I've used it four times, and twice I never got an email notification. I don't know if it's coincidence, but both of the failed notifications were for small parcels from Asia. I was careful to check my emails and spam folders daily. Nothing. Luckily for me I stopped in the post office and asked if there was anything for me.

Unknown said...

About the notification email: I have never received one. I have to track the progress daily and when I saw the "delivered" status I would pay the RPO a visit. The staffs @ the RPO inside a SDM have no idea how it works.

Frustrated by Flex Address said...

Hi,
I'm in Richmond, BC. I've used Flex delivery more than 10 times and i can say, at least 5 times, I did not get the notification email either. There are times when I even forgot I was expecting a package. The only way I found out was that I was there to pick up another package, and the clerk tells me there is another package waiting for me all this time, and that they were about to return it back.

Anonymous said...

Sounds as though it's a good thing that I couldn't even finish the sign up as there was no 'map below' to click on to choose which Post Office(s) to deliver to. It sounded like such a good idea too. Oh well...

Anonymous said...

Flexdelivery seems to have severe bugs. While signing up, it wouldn't find my mailing address--which Canada Post assigned to me. I think I managed to get it to accept what I entered, but I''m not sure. The map locator gave the wrong location for the post office. I used the address Flexdelivery assigned to me, exactly as it directed me. I got and email notice for one parcel, but the other one had some sort of 'notice left' when I checked its progress. It turned out that Flexdelivery gave me an incorrect address for the post office, even though it gave other people a correct address. I managed to get both parcels, but the post office employee told me to contact Canada Post and get a correct address.

I tried contacting Flexdelivery via their Facebook account. I don't know why they bother having that, because the response was just: 'Call Canada Post'. I told them that I'd rather not phone, since I don't have convenient phone service where I am (an opening in the woods). They didn't bother responding to that. Not impressive customer service.

I'm glad that the service exists. I'm not impressed by the quality of the service though. I expect it's just a matter of people with job security not caring a about service.

Anonymous said...

The canadapost employee at the counter is soposed to input the flex delivery and thats when it sends your email, but alot of postal clerks apparently dont kbow how to do that. So, actually it was the kind old lady's fault you didnt get your parcel for a week.

SIFT at YUL said...

I have lived frustration with Flex delivery. I've had some explanation from a clerk at the counter today. Flexdelivery works with parcels that have a tracking number. Anything else, including letters, is returned to sender with no effort to track me from my flex delivery identification.

So I have half a dozen of parcels from Asia that will probably be returned because they do not fit their pattern.

What a lost cause. What an ivory tower that Canada post.

I wanted to use flexdelivery because I have lost parcels left by my door by the mailman.

Anybody has a suggestion?

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Peggie99 said...

I have two Flexdelivery addresses. One at the local neighborhood post office in a grocery store, and another in a Rexall pharmacy next to my workplace. Not once did I get a notification email about parcels sent to the Rexall PO.
I even opened up a ticket with Canada Post: they weren't able to determine what was wrong. So I switched to using the other location exclusively.