Torstar launches Metroland Parcel Services in Ontario

TORONTO, Nov. 17, 2020 — Metroland Parcel Services, a Torstar business, is launching a brand new parcel delivery service in Ontario. The first parcels delivered by Metroland were on behalf of the national retail chain Toys”R”Us Canada.

Torstar has delivered newspapers and flyers to most neighbourhoods in Ontario every week for more than 100 years.  Metroland builds on this historic, trusted delivery expertise to provide Ontario retailers with a new rapid, dedicated, high-quality way to deliver their parcels right to the homes of their customers across Ontario.

The Ontario parcel delivery market is worth an estimated $4.5 billion a year and this year, for the first time ever, it is estimated that almost 50 per cent of consumers will shop online. Metroland is ideally placed to provide quality delivery service to e-commerce businesses in the province looking to ensure their parcels are delivered on time.

“As we have all seen, retail e-commerce revenue is growing rapidly and the impact of COVID-19 has accelerated it,” said Paul Rivett, chair and co-owner of Torstar Corporation. “As a result, some traditional parcel delivery organizations are struggling to meet service level commitments and major retailers are seeking ways to deal with this problem.

“We want to thank all of our team for putting this great new business in place, but also thanks to our friends Jamie Irving, vice-president of Brunswick News Inc., and the Brunswick News family for assisting with the implementation and to Vic Bertrand, President and CEO of Toys”R”Us Canada, and the Toys”R”Us family for working with us to become our first customer,” he said.

Rivett added that “the Metroland parcel delivery business radically changes the economics of the newspaper and flyer delivery business by utilizing existing infrastructure to significantly lower the cost of goods sold.”

Vic Bertrand, President and CEO of Toys”R”Us Canada said the parcel service “is a brilliant and timely move for Metroland. E-commerce delivery has become a bottleneck for Canadian merchants. And in our business, the ‘Grinch’ is delays in getting kids their toys! Big thanks to the Metroland and Toys”R”Us teams for getting this service up and running just in time to deliver happiness for the holidays.”

Jordan Bitove, co-owner of Torstar, said a huge benefit for clients of Metroland Delivery Services is that Torstar knows southern Ontario, with a history of delivery across the entire region for more than a century.

“We deliver billions of newspapers and flyers every year in Ontario,” Bitove added. “We have the experience to deliver quality results for retailers, with reliable, secure and consistent delivery solutions from city centres to rural communities. We have the warehouses, the depots, the trucking relationships, the targeting capabilities and the client relationships.”

Metroland utilizes its contracted driver network to provide reliable and cost-effective premium final-mile parcel deliver experience in Ontario. It provides both next-day and standard 2-3-day delivery, offering delivery guarantees, real-time parcel tracking, photo delivery confirmation and next-day redelivery. The new service also provides seamless technology integration into existing client platforms.

Retailers can learn more by visiting metrolandparcelservices.ca.

About Torstar Corporation
Torstar Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nordstar Capital LP, is a broadly-based holding company whose businesses include the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper, six regional daily newspapers in Ontario and more than 70 weekly community newspapers in Ontario. Torstar also holds a majority interest in VerticalScope, a North American vertically-focused digital media company, among a broad range of other businesses and investments.

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