Oh, I'm aware of the issue. We do business in the U.S. We have a U.S. company that I just returned from last night in Hartford, Michigan, where we ship tens of thousands of parcels through.
To directly answer your question, no, I've not seen that as a problem, in part because of the nature of our business. It's not like we're selling apparel or computer equipment. There are a lot more issues to ship the type of product that we sell from the U.S. into Canada than there would be with most mainstream catalogues, and for that reason, even if there were a difference between delivery costs, that would not be something that affects us.
There is a service we utilize in our U.S. operation, which I have suggested in the past would be great for us and, I'm sure, other people as well. It's called the FedEx SmartPost system. This is the most efficient and affordable system we have been able to find in the U.S., and it enables us to send small parcel shipments across the United States. Simply put, the service is a combination of efforts between Federal Express and the USPS. When each address is scanned in the system, the system determines how far the parcel will travel with FedEx and at what point it will handed off to the USPS for eventual home delivery. FedEx does the pickup and the invoicing, and somehow their system calculates the revenue share between the two companies.
Given the connection with Purolator, our country is far behind the U.S. in developing and promoting such a service offering. If a private company like FedEx can align itself with the USPS, one would think that Canada Post and its sister company Purolator could easily do the same. Should a system like that be offered by Canada Post, then we would change the manner in which we ship to the wide variety of business that we do.
In one particular case, we had a large fundraising program across the country wherein we shipped everything a school or a group might have sold. We shipped it in bulk on pallets by transport companies to that organization. In the U.S. we're able to offer the service that eliminates that hassle for the organization, and we're able to ship every one of their customers their product directly to their homes. Currently in Canada, however, we're unable to do that because it's cost prohibitive. The FedEx SmartPost system makes it affordable. We would love to see this—