Torstar launches new parcel delivery service for Ontario retailers
Torstar Corp. has been delivering newspapers across Ontario for about 128 years — and now it will add parcels to the mix.
The owner of the Toronto Star and about 76 other Ontario papers has launched Metroland Parcel Services in a bid to help businesses in the province get packages to consumers in a fast and cost-effective way.
The Toronto-based company’s service will utilize Torstar’s contracted driver network to offer retailers next-day and standard two- or three-day deliveries that can be tracked.
“We’ve been delivering to these neighborhoods across the province for 100+ years but just didn’t stop and think why don’t we actually deliver other stuff?” said Paul Rivett, Torstar’s chairman and co-owner.
“This is the first of a number of announcements around building on the foundation of what was just newspapers.”
Rivett got the idea for the delivery service after Golf Town’s Frederick Lecoq told him how successful parcel delivery has been for newspapers in France.
Nordstar Capital LP, Rivett and business partner Jordan Bitove’s company, was still in the process of cobbling together a $60-million bid to buy Torstar, when the delivery idea came about.
They mentioned it to the five families that built and grew the media conglomerate founded by Joseph Atkinson in 1892 and revisited the idea when their deal went through earlier this year.
They also learned Brunswick News Inc., owned by the industrialist Irving family, was doing deliveries for e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. in Atlantic Canada.