Forgot to buy that birthday present for tomorrow’s party, and don’t have time to drive to the store?

Beginning Tuesday in selected parts of the Greater Toronto Area, you can order an item online before 12:30 p.m. at certain retailers, and it will be delivered that same evening between 5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The cut-off time and cost for the service depends on the retailer.

This is part of a new pilot project from Canada Post that kicks off with four big retailers – Best Buy, Future Shop, Indigo and Walmart.ca – to test the marketplace and see if consumers are willing to pay extra fees for quicker service.

Called Delivered Tonight, the service goes into effect Tuesday and will run until the end of December. Canada Post promises to try twice to deliver the parcels on the evening the order is placed online.

The service is likely to appeal to a small segment of online shoppers initially, but does have the potential to change the nature of online shopping in Canada, said Rodney Hart, general manager of domestic parcels and e-commerce market development at Canada Post.

“We’re not aware of anybody providing a service like this, with this scope and scale, anywhere in Canada right now,” Hart said in an interview.

Facing a steep drop mail volume, Canada Post is trying to reinvent itself in the e-commerce world, especially since parcel deliveries are a growing business with the popularity of online shopping.

Retailers, too, are still learning how to spur online shopping in Canada. A consumer survey released in August found that while Canadians are the world’s heaviest Internet users, about 22 per cent say they never buy anything online. That’s compared to 12 per cent of Americans and 6 per cent of Germans and British.

From now until the end of December, Walmart.ca will ship products ordered before 11:30 a.m. for free using the new service. (There are two restrictions: the item must be available at its main warehouse and within size specifications.)

The retailer has been using the service for about two weeks, “surprising and delighting” about 200 customers with the speedy delivery, said Simon Rodrigue, vice-president of e-commerce at Walmart Canada.

The company will assess the results of pilot project and determine what to charge for same-day delivery in early 2014, he said.

At Future Shop and Best Buy Canada, products must be ordered before 11 a.m. to qualify for the service, which will cost $13.95.

“Not all customers are going to take advantage of that, but we know there are consumers out there who want that immediacy,” said Robert Pearson, vice president of e-commerce at Best Buy/Future Shop. “We think it could prove to be a popular service around the holidays.”

At Indigo, customers need to place their online order by 12:30 p.m. to receive their package the same day. Pricing starts at $13.95 per order, or more for heavier packages, said Janet Eger, vice president, public relations for Indigo Books & Music Inc.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Canada Post will evaluate Delivered Tonight in the first three months of 2014 and decide whether to expand the service to other markets, Hart said.

It is still unclear whether busy consumers, in Canada and elsewhere, will be willing to pay extra for convenience and instant gratification.

In the United States, various pilot programs and tests are under way by big name companies like eBay, Google and Amazon in certain densely populated cities like New York and San Francisco to deliver everything from groceries, toys and flat-screen TVs.

A study by Boston Consulting Group earlier this year surveyed 1,500 U.S. consumers found lower prices and free shipping were more important than same-day delivery.

Read more about: