Spot of the oh white after the excitement of the Red Dawn, and you know what is said about red sky in the morning.

To date we have had the two CBC radio Tx go down yesterday, they are the ones that transmit the CBC main national and regional feed to the community.

Then yesterday afternoon I receive this e mail from Well. ca. This is really bad news for those of us in remote communities. Well.ca has been sending orders free of shipping charges for quite some time, it was only a matter of time before the plug was pulled.
But as you can see by the tone of the e mail it was with great regret. There are ways to deal with this, I will be forwarding my suggestions to Well.ca and hopefully something posative can come out of all the efforts.

This will be a big hit not only on Well.ca and consumers but also on Canada Post and the shipping companies.
Canada Post pricing on shipping packages to remote communities is counter intuitive to running a profitable business.  Who is going to pay $50 to ship a $20 order, it's just crazy and unfair.

Dear Brian

I wanted to email you personally to tell you about a change that is happening at Well.ca. Starting October 12th 2011, we have to implement a shipping charge on orders to remote locations. The charge is going to be $14.99 on orders above $300 and $29.99 on orders below $300.

Let me tell you that I really did not want to do this. I want to offer free shipping on all orders, especially for you in remote locations, but the math did not work. When we ship a $20 order, we were sometimes paying $50 in shipping and we can’t continue to operate our business that way. Our customers in remote locations are very important to us (you are some of our favourites!) but we are getting more and more orders for these areas. Unfortunately this is costing us a lot and as a small business we cannot continue losing money in this way.

I have actually spent the last few months trying desperately to find a way to ship more cost effectively to these locations. And we’re still trying! We’re looking into setting up some locations to consolidate the shipments in order to save costs. We’re also working with the government to see if they can help. I promise to keep trying because we want to be able to help serve remote communities. In fact, one of our longest serving staff members just moved to Iqaluit herself and she is helping us try to find a solution.

We’ve added a new phone number 1-855-723-7090 which is only for customers from remote locations. The customer care individuals at the other end of the line know about shipping to these areas so please give them a call with any questions.

Also we’ve picked a few customers and are giving them a coupon to have free shipping on one last order.

SHIPLVVGA

Use this code on your next order and the shipping will be waived. This coupon expires Dec 2, 2011.

So again, I hope that you will continue to be a Well.ca shopper despite this change. The whole team truly appreciates your business. If you have any suggestions on other ways that we can help reach your communities in a more cost effective way then please send me an email.

Take care and thank you for your understanding,

Ali

CEO and Founder of Well.ca