What we hear from our small sellers and our large e-commerce retailers, as well, is that they would love to be able to offer free shipping to their buyers. It's table stakes in Canada and around the world in e-commerce to offer tracking when you deliver something. The current service offering from Canada Post really only has expensive, fast-tracking services. What would be great would be to complement those with slower services that also offer tracking.
What we find when we do studies is that there are a certain number of transactions or occasions when people engage in e-commerce. They are looking to have the goods very quickly—the same day, the next day, within two or three days—but there are also a number of occasions when consumers are buying something on e-commerce when they want their item next week or two weeks from now. If I'm buying a Halloween costume in September, I don't need it there the next day. In that case, I might as a buyer, trade off time in order to have free shipping from my seller.
The challenge right now is that Canadian sellers find it really difficult to offer free shipping with tracking because of the service offering from Canada Post. Complementing the fast, expensive services with slower, less-expensive services that also have tracking would give a better spectrum of services that buyers and sellers could use in e-commerce.