It’s one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year, but for many Canadians, this year’s Black Friday deals may not arrive before Christmas – and that could be a death knell for already challenging-hit tiny businesses.

Two weeks into a national postal service strike at Canada Post, and many businesses declare they’ve suffered steep monetary losses as customers have had to wait for their orders. Inventory sits in warehouses across the country and shipping costs have increased.

Lorne James, who owns Otter Valley Railway, a model train corporation in London, Ontario, estimates he’s lost C$120,000 ($85,600; £67,200) in sales since the strike began.

“It’s going to wipe out a excellent number of businesses,” he told the BBC. He estimated that about 80% of his orders are received online, and up until two weeks ago, 99% of his deliveries were done with Canada Post.

Negotiations between the corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPOW) have broken down, amid massive monetary losses, especially over the issue of allowing temporary workers to assist expand the corporation’s delivery to seven-days-a-week.

Bruce Winder, a Canadian retail analyst, said that while the growth of online shopping has led to recent courier companies entering the economy, Canada Post is often the most affordable, and has the network to deliver in rural areas many other companies won’t.

The strike could not arrive at a worse period, Mr Winder said. For companies that sell things that can be gifted, Christmas sales can account for 30-40% of their annual turnover, he told the BBC.

He also predicts that this year, Canadians were already planning on spending less, because of the rise in the expense-of-living.

“It’s a double whammy, you recognize, because they’ve got the Canada Post strike and they’ve got sort of negative customer sentiment,” he said.

Mr James said he’s doing better than most, because he negotiated contracts with other delivery services prior to the strike – but shipping overseas with a different carrier was too expensive, which has him losing out on some orders this holiday period.

In an open note, Canadian corporation Shopify, which helps businesses set up online stores, urged the government to intervene to “prevent a devastating blow to Canadian tiny businesses at their most critical period of year”.

The note came after the federally appointed mediator suspended talks on Wednesday.

“His assessment is that parties remain too far apart on critical issues for mediation to be successful at this period,” said Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon on X.

The union says it is bargaining for inflationary pay rises, better benefits, and for the corporation to consent to not hire outside-contractors. Meanwhile, Canada Post says it needs to have more flexible work hours – and hire more temporary workers – in order to shift to seven-day delivery and be more competitive.

The union told the BBC the current standstill “didn’t require to be this way”.

“[We] only took the challenging selection to call a strike after Canada Post announced the complete to the existing collective agreements, an complete to health benefits and to lay-offs,” the union said in a statement.

The statement said that postal workers are “deeply aware” of the hurt the strike is causing communities, pointing to its selection to delay deal negotiations so workers could deliver throughout the pandemic.

It said the corporation is trying to replace packed-period unionised jobs with temporary “gig” workers.

In a statement to the BBC, the corporation said it understands the impact this strike is having on Canadians, but that they could not afford to not make transformative changes.

“With mounting monetary losses in the billions, Canada Post requires greater flexibility to its outdated, mail-based delivery model. This is about the upcoming of the postal service and growing revenues by better serving Canadians.”

The union, meanwhile, said it believes the corporation can be profitable without gig work, and pointed to its proposal to adopt the UK model of having the post office propose low-fee mail banking.

At issue, says Carleton University community policy professor Ian Lee, who has spent several decades researching the country’s postal service, is the very survival of Canada Post itself.

“It’s Armageddon,” he told the BBC, comparing the fate of Canada Post to that of Blockbuster Video.

Canada Post, which is a for-boost corporation owned by the federal government, posted a C$749m setback during the 2023 budgetary year.

The corporation’s biggest business used to be delivering letters – but note volume has dropped from 5.5 billion pieces in 2006 to 2.3 billion in 2022 with the rise of the internet, according to the corporation’s annual update.

Although parcel delivery has greatly increased with the advent of online shopping, they face stiff competition in the field, especially from Amazon, which uses its own couriers for many of its orders.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has faced similar issues, reporting a $9.5bn net setback during the last budgetary year.

On Friday, the USPS announced it was pausing accepting mail destined for Canada due to Canada Post “indicating that they are unable to procedure or deliver international mail or services as a outcome of the ongoing national strike”.

But as the strike has dragged on, Canada Post’s financials have deteriorated even further. The corporation says it has delivered 10 million fewer parcels since the strike began. It began temporarily laying off striking workers this week, a shift the union has called illegal.

Canada Post has said the lay-offs are in accordance with the Canada Labour Code.

Some businesses declare the strike has led them to reconsider who they hire to do their deliveries.

“We’re looking very challenging at other parcel delivery services for the upcoming,” said John Barrett, director of sales and marketing for Vesey’s Seeds, Canada’s largest mail-order garden business.

“I’d declare their upcoming is very dim.”

He said he has 250,000 seed catalogues sitting in a warehouse unable to be delivered, which means he’s not only paying extra to store them, but he’s missing out on large business because his customers don’t have a catalogue to order from.

Earlier this month, the labour minister issued a back-work-order to complete a ports strike. But there is no sign that the government is willing to intervene in the postal workers strike.

When the BBC asked for comment, MacKinnon’s office pointed to an interview the minister gave to Radio-Canada, where he said: “This is a turning point for Canada Post and it is essential in my view that the employees, their union and the corporation consent on the path to pursue for the upcoming.”

On X, MacKinnon also wrote that “as in all disputes, they alone are responsible for the consequences of this dispute, and for its resolution”.

That response isn’t sufficient, said Mr Barrett.

“It’s just remarkable that they’re allowing this to last as long as they’ve had with absolutely no indication whatsoever that they’re going to resolve it at any point in period,” he said.

“It’s period for government to act. I blame government more so than either the post office or [the union].”