Canada gets no respect

I have noticed that sometimes a knife will sit unsold on the forum at a very good price while similar knives sell quickly at higher prices. I am primarily a Busse collector and have seen this happen several times with Busses. I could find no reasons (such as point of origin, bad feedback, or differences in condition) for this happening but it unquestionably does. Maybe it was just your turn, just one of those things that happen occasionally.
 
PorcupineMtns66 said:
There's more to it than 35 seconds.
Our Post Offices have long lines and short hours in the USA. On any given day from 4pm to closing at 7pm on weekdays and all day Saturday (only times most working folks can mail parcels), there may be 20-30 people inline (With 2, maybe 3 clerks) which means you stand there for well over an hour just to spend 35 seconds on paperwork.

With a domestic shipment, you can bypass the line, head to a automated kiosk that weighs your package, allows you to purchase insurance and DC, return reciept etc, dispenses your postage and then you walk 5 feet to a giant bombproof box and drop it in. Total time if you know the machine.........60 seconds. INTl Shipments must have postage dispensed by a clerk at the counter.

The other thing with INTL shipments is that although we have good online guides by the USPS regarding INTL shipping, the pages are not easy to find on their webstite. They need a bare bones guide to insurance maximums and restricted items.

Problem 1- I shipped a well-packed parcel to france with a $1200 knife in it. After standing inline for an hour, the USPS tells me they will only insure for $600 to that country.

Problem 2- I had to self-insure half of it.

Problem 3 was that it had to go via a different service to get that $600 insurance.

Problem 4 was I had it in a Priority Mail box and it needed to be repacked in a Express Mail box to get that $600 insurance.

Problem 5- Back home to repack.

Problem 6- Return to the PO and another hour in line with the possibility of having to return the next day because they lock the door at closing time. If your not inside the counter room at closing, your SOL that day.About 20 people can cram in my PO counter room but if you add multiple parcels for each person, multiple screaming kids for each person, you wind up with about 8-10 people wanting to ship and the extras are just taking up space. Of course theres always a few people inline that don't speak English which further delays things.

It's a Royal pain in the arse to ship international!!!!!

Someone asked me just the other day to ship a knife into canada and that it should only cost an extra ten USD via air mail (I was to absorb this cost apparently). I looked it up and the price was $38USD without insurance.

Another issue is double red tape if it goes AWOL intransit. Which countries service lost it? Which customs service, after inspection, did the crappy job retaping it causing the contents to fall out? Who do you see about that?

It's a Royal pain in the arse to ship international!!!!!
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i don't see what a story about overseas shipping has anything to do with this thread about international shipping, i wouldn't offer overseas shipping either... but anyways, seems to me like the problem isn't in the paperwork, but with a crappy postal system that makes you wait in line. here if i ship within Canada or if i ship to the US there is no automatic kiosk option, you have to see the clerk at the counter either way, but there is never more than a 5 minute line so the difference is 35 seconds.... which service asked you to pay 38$ for shipping!? that's insane, unless it was a 50lb knife in a 3 foot box? i actually pay a few bucks more to ship within Canada than i do to ship to the US (never could understand that one...if someone could explain that to me i'd appreciate it). the most i spent on having a knife shipped over here is 15$ and that was a 16" bowie with a sheath in a 2 foot box. the most i spent on shipping a knife over to the US was 8-9$ for a boker kalishnakov (in the machine gun mag type box that they come in).

anyways, i understand your frustration in your explanation, seems like you've had some bad experiences. but you have no idea how it sucks not being able to get a good deal on a knife (in some cases not even being able to get it at all!) because dealers or individuals will not take the extra time to ship international. especially when most of the time we (Canadians) HAVE to ship it international in order to make a sale.

check this thread out... http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=698340 ..."first i'll take it gets it" i believe i was first, but hey screw me i'm Canadian. :(

sometimes i wonder why i even bother with forums, i get to have about one out of every 10 i try to buy.
 
Chinpo said:
Obviously, it's everyone's own personal choice on who to deal or not deal with and I respect this. Nevertheless, it's still disheartening.
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And that ought to be the bottom line.

I don't want this to turn into a, "You're xenophobic, lazy, and your postal system sucks becuase it's full of psychotic mass murderers!" -- "Yeah, well you hump Eskimos and your postal system sucks more cuz it's run by a bunch of pacifist hippies!" shouting match. I just wanna buy some cool knives and maybe sell a few when the well runs dry.:)

Kumbaya to y'all.;)
 
I'm retired from a career in USPS management so I may be more forgiving of some of the difficulties involved. But I do recognize that adding any extra work to selling & shipping, when so many customers are right here in the US, is going to be hard to resist.

smartassmart, I just came across a thread where you were the first respondent but lost to the second because he was in the US. That seems obvious, but you also have to realize there are people who prefer not to deal with you because of your name. You're new here, you're in another country, you have no profile information filled out -- location, interests, biography -- you don't even have email enabled. Reliability documentation: zero.
 
It's true that some/many Americans are wary of sending knives abroad, they may have good reasons or are listening to hearsay,but everybody has the right to set their terms, obviously.

When I get a parcel from the US I always take the trouble of e-mailing the sender that all went OK. Remember, as a buyer you've got to be just as choosy because some dishonest types might vie a foreign sale as easy meat. It go lost in the post...it got sent back to me bla bla. It can happen, and it does.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
smartassmart, I just came across a thread where you were the first respondent but lost to the second because he was in the US. That seems obvious, but you also have to realize there are people who prefer not to deal with you because of your name. You're new here, you're in another country, you have no profile information filled out -- location, interests, biography -- you don't even have email enabled. Reliability documentation: zero.
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i'd understand your point completely if i were selling and you had to send me money, but i fail to see the complication when it's the other way around, give me your paypal adress, boom, the cash is deposited... how could anyone possibly get screwed in that transaction? (except me).

but point taken, i'll go update my profile right now (location, interests, biography) and enable emails (didn't even know it was turned off). but i can't really do anything about the rest (my country, the fact that i'm new here)... my username has been the same since 1997 so i really don't want to change that, i'm on ebay, jerzee devil, dalton forums, youtube, hotmail, photobucket, knife forums, gunbroker, sharper deals, knife auction, purevolume, lastFM, demonoid, isohunt and many more under the same username. i'm also an administrator at mustangforums under the username HC_CrAzYHoRsE.
 
smartassmart said:
i'd understand your point completely if i were selling and you had to send me money, but i fail to see the complication when it's the other way around, give me your paypal adress, boom, the cash is deposited... how could anyone possibly get screwed in that transaction? (except me).
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It happens every day. See the Vlad Pavlov threads in the Hall of Shame for details of how the scams work....

Briefly, just because you see money deposited in your account doesn't mean you get to keep it. PayPal is just another credit card fulfillment service, basically, and they can grab money out of your account with them, out of your bank account, out of other bank accounts at the same bank that you didn't think they even knew about -- because it turns out the other party paid with a bad credit card, or just because the other party claims they never received the knife. When it's an international transaction everything favors the thief; it's very hard to fight.
 
i wasn't aware of that, thanks for the info i'll be carefull about that too from now on. what is the minimum amount of time a payment as to sit at paypal before you have some sort of guarantee that it's not a fraud?
 
smartassmart said:
i don't see what a story about overseas shipping has anything to do with this thread about international shipping, i wouldn't offer overseas shipping either...
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I was responding to your 35 second comment, not the OP.
Also, INTL shipping is cross border or cross sea.
 
KarlMaldensNose said:
Okay, I'm not whining, the thread title was just a ploy to get you to read. But my question is somewhat reflected in the title. I've recently seen a few BG-42 Millies for sale on the Exchange and it got me thinking. Earlier this year I tried to sell a LNIB BG-42 Military here. IIRC, I priced it at ~ $180 CND or about $160 USD with exchange at the time. While I got plenty of trade offers, nobody would commit to a straight-up purchase. Now, the Millies I've seen lately have been going for close to $200 USD, with some even up to and around $230, and one or two of them were even visibly used. And they've been selling, too! I'm wondering why I had so much trouble selling mine, at such a good price and in such excellent condition, when they seem to be snapped up quickly these days at higher prices and some even in worse condition. In your opinion does the fact that I'm in Canada have anything to do with it? Shipping was included in the price, and as far as I know U.S. buyers rarely have their knives taxed when coming from private sellers in Canada. So I can't figure it out. I'd love to hear anyone's--American, Canadian, Martian, whoever--opinions on the matter. Thanks.:)
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I think it was just bad timing. I checked your feedback and although it's miminal, I see two people I trust there and that's a big plus to me regardless of your being Canadian. I'd buy from you.
Some weeks not much moves in the exchange and the next, everything goes like hotcakes.

It would be very odd for a tax to be charged importing to the US if it is handed off the our USPS.
I bought a Mears Woodlore for $900 out of Europe, had it shipped via their equivalant of our PO and no tax on arrival. If I'm not mistaken, it should have been.
If it comes via UPS or FedEx, they certainly do charge you fees for this, that and anything else they can whip up and justify as they are the brokerage firm /customs clearance agent themselves.
 
PorcupineMtns66 said:
I was responding to your 35 second comment, not the OP.
Also, INTL shipping is cross border or cross sea.
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i was under the impression that international didn't include overseas, thanks for the clarification... i've learned alot this afternoon. :D

still frustrating as hell though, i've lost 3 knives just TODAY because sellers refused to ship to Canada. :(

i don't blame any of you guys though, you're all cool as hell, i blame the freakin' customs. :mad: we should go stab them.
 
smartassmart said:
i was under the impression that international didn't include overseas, thanks for the clarification... i've learned alot this afternoon. :D

still frustrating as hell though, i've lost 3 knives just TODAY because sellers refused to ship to Canada. :(

i don't blame any of you guys though, you're all cool as hell, i blame the freakin' customs. :mad: we should go stab them.
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I'd say you lost them solely because of the Holiday season lines at our Post Offices. Today specifically is the busiest Postal day of the year.
Maybe wait until about mid january after the holidays are over and the returns being sent back for exchange etc or out of the system. Lines will be shorter late january.
 
it depends on the situation. if your a nice guy and have a good rep on the forum people dont worry too much about shipping woes.

and canadians as well are so anxious to get the knives americans wont ship here that when i sell them on the canadian exchange they go in minutes;)
 
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