Canadian retailer Skiis & Biikes is thriving. They sell skis, bikes, outdoor clothing, equipment and more. The company has grown significantly by exceeding its customers’ expectations and extending its commitment to good customer service to its online shoppers by shipping with Canada Post.
How Skiis & Biikes got started
In 1978, a young Paul Montgomery opened a tiny ski shop in the hills of Caledon, Ontario. He promised service would be the backbone of his business and stayed true to his word. He provided quick and reliable service to tens of thousands of customers over the next four decades. Since the very beginning, they were the ‘little shop that could,’ and then they just grew and grew. Today, the next generation of the Montgomery family operates Skiis & Biikes’ four brick-and-mortar stores in the Greater Toronto Area and their increasingly popular online store.
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Subscribe to e-newsletterHow Skiis & Biikes securely reaches Canadians from coast to coast to coast by shipping with Canada Post
Canadian shipping can be tricky – especially when you have remote customers. To meet their growing online customer base’s needs, the Skiis & Biikes team needed a reliable partner that could deliver a trustworthy and secure shipping service that reflected their own business model. Because of their unmatched reach, Skiis & Biikes chose to partner with Canada Post to serve the company’s rural customers. Canada Post is the only shipping company in Canada that’s able to serve all 16.7 million Canadian addresses. “We chose Canada Post before the pandemic (was declared),” says Gillian Montgomery, Paul’s daughter and now co-owner of the business. “It was a good fit to reach rural areas,” especially in the Maritimes and the Yukon, where Skiis & Biikes has customers. Skiis & Biikes quickly learned that Canada Post offers the most secure delivery experience in Canada. Thanks to Canada Post, more than 70 per cent of Canadians receive their deliveries through unique and secure access points – such as community mailboxes, apartment lobby boxes, parcel lockers and more. “We didn’t even think of things like PO Boxes or (access to) apartments at the time,” says Montgomery, who appreciates having secure delivery options to offer their shoppers. When items can’t be safely delivered to their doors or lobbies, they can be sent to one of more than 6,000 secure and temperature-controlled post offices across the country for customer pickup. Skiis & Biikes were so impressed by Canada Post’s reach across the country, and their secure delivery experience, that they moved all of the company’s Canadian shipping needs for their ecommerce business to Canada Post.
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How Canada Post supports Skiis & Biikes’ ecommerce operations
Ecommerce in Canada is very competitive. Canada Post not only helps Skiis & Biikes offer a best-in-class shipping experience to their customers, but helps support their ecommerce operations through tools, integrations and dedicated support. Canada Post’s seamless integrations with third-party services such as Shopify Canada and ShipStation caught Montgomery’s attention. She uses both services to easily manage online orders and returns from the site, as well as from marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon. “Through ShipStation, I can create a return label with a simple click.” With Canada Post’s range of technology partnerships, Skiis & Biikes can easily access labels, returns and tracking through the technology partner of their choice, while seamlessly streamlining orders across their selling channels.
How Skiis & Biikes has grown with Canada Post
Montgomery’s Canada Post representative is there to support the business every step of the way. This support and open communication helped Montgomery manage her customers’ expectations during the COVID-19 pandemic, when about 90 per cent of their business moved online. Canada Post was there to help them tackle the increased demand and adjust their backend operations. If you want to succeed in ecommerce in Canada, you need the best partners to support you. Skiis & Biikes is pleased that Canada Post shares their service-first values. They have seen it firsthand in Canada Post’s dedicated and ongoing service throughout every stage of their own ecommerce journey.
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