Canada Post has announced that right-to-your-door delivery will be phased out to save money and make it more efficient.

Rolling out this new postal delivery program will be a real juggle. In the transition there is going to be a lot of confusion and loss of service as Canada Post struggles to continue to operate its old system while it installs a whole new program.

I do not know for sure but I would imagine that the cost of hiring, training, equipping and paying wages and benefits for a new postal delivery person is huge. When you think about the scale that Canada Post operates on, the normal rate of attrition is probably in the hundreds each month or so. It seems that hiring new people for an old system does not make sense when you are going to replace them in the near future.

I continue to hear reports about mail not getting delivered in parts of Canada for days. I think that is because they just have not replaced the postie who would normally be doing the route regularly. I think to myself, they are not replacing that person because the new system will eliminate them anyway.

In all my years I have seen the loss of many door-to-door services. We used to have milk delivery and yes; I do remember the milk man delivering with a horse pulling his Borden’s cart through downtown Toronto where I grew up. I remember the Sunbeam girl on the side of the old bread delivery trucks as well. I remember Fuller Brush salespeople, the aluminum siding “tin men”, Girl Guides and all sorts of others who would come to our neighbourhood with their wares and their services. You don’t see any of them door-to-door anymore. Things have changed.

I have often lamented and I have written in previous columns that real estate agents offer one of the last of the person-to-person services. Agents come to your door to deliver licensed, professional services. I do not think that this is something of the past. I think it is the way of the future.

Businesses that bring products and services to your door are growing in leaps and bounds almost without acknowledgement. How can this be such a secret to so many? They include all manner of food services, from the delivery of artisan bakery creators who bring their products right to your door to the fresh veggie growers who happily deliver their goods for a price. There are many health care services that now visit patients at home. There are professional musicians, home meal delivery services, computer technician squads and dog walkers, all coming to your door. Earlier this year, Amazon unveiled a new delivery system of the future through the use of drones so they could deliver products, including fresh food items. Things have certainly changed yet somehow they are fundamentally the same.

I remember when real estate salespeople set themselves up as local experts on everything. They hung out their shingles on every main street selling real estate and insurance. If you wanted gossip, you went to the local barber shop or the “hair dresser” but if you wanted to know what was really going on in the community, you went to the real estate office.

I remember when anyone who presented themselves as a home inspector was given pretty short shrift by the local real estate guy, who would come just short of running them out of town for suggesting they could be helpful in buying a house.

Things have changed. Today real estate agents are facilitators who guide buyers and sellers. They are knowledge centres who call on other professionals with expertise in related fields of finance, legal issues, construction estimations and many others including home inspectors. Agents are the source for information about every aspect of selling a home and buying property.

Real estate professionals today are far more than sales representatives. They are high value professionals who come right to your door to facilitate your greatest investment. Things have changed.

Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected].