Why it sucks to buy stuff in the US and ship to Canada

A guy from Canada bought a fairly expensive Busse knife from me (Australia). He asked me to declare the goods at a lower price than he paid because of the taxes. I didn't because I didn't want to get in trouble/didn't quite understand the laws. I feel bad that he is likely going to get slapped in the face with these BS import fees.

Here in Aus like Andy said, under $1000 AUD there is no import fee. I thought that sucked but it's a lot better than what you guys have.

I wish there was just a push button solution to change stupid things like this instantly..
 
esurm said:
Pro tip: DO NOT USE Fedex, UPS, DHL etc. to ship things over the border. They charge an INSANE brokerage fee to do the customs clearance and if you don't prepay that money they charge you for a bond (2.7% for UPS) and then they finally add the actual real tax on top of that. I had to pay $35 on a $60 order and the takes were in reality a little over $3. You can see their rates here https://www.ups.com/content/ca/en/shipping/cost/zones/customs_clearance.html?WT.mc_id=VAN7000411

These rates are charged on every parcel because they make so much more money from this process.


USPS/Canada Post will charge a $9.95 handling fee and then what ever your provinces GST/PST/HST rate is. They randomly pick parcels for getting taxed. I have been taxed on $50 parcels while $500 ones get through without.
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That is true, and I verified this with UPS, with some truly insane stories: UPS-only is an absolute deal-breaker for me, no matter what it is...

Gaston
 
Read a study done recently about the cost of collect customs fees and taxes, and the amount physically collected did not add up.
 
I just don't bother looking at U.S. retailers anymore for items like knives, etc. since they either don't ship to Canada anyway or I'm left wondering if someone at our Canadian Customs decides I can't have my items that are perfectly legal to own here. Then there's always the random tax "lottery" if the package does get let through.
After speaking to fellow knife collectors and reading many stories similar to the ones here, I decided it's probably best I stick with Canadian retailers. At least half the people I talked to here in Canada that tried ordering a ZT 562 from the U.S. ended up having to re-order again due to the knife being rejected at our customs ("gravity" knife). Sucks that this limits my choice in knives. On the bright side, keeps me from spending as much as I would like to. :P
 
Danke42 said:
Lots of folks used to do that pre-net. They'd have a mailbox at a border town and drive down ever week or so to pick up. Not just private folks but businesses would do that and self import vs. letting the broker/carrier stiff them with a 75% handling fee. This was in the late 80s for bike and Moto-X parts that you'd see in magazines but either had no Canadian channel or the distributor was so slow they were a year behind the cutting edge.
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Sold a Busse to a nice feller up in Canada and shipped to North Dakota, it was a hardware store and I called the owner and he confirmed that the guy came across the border a time or two per week and picked up his goods...seemed to work for him pretty well.
 
BTGuy said:
I just don't bother looking at U.S. retailers anymore for items like knives, etc. since they either don't ship to Canada anyway or I'm left wondering if someone at our Canadian Customs decides I can't have my items that are perfectly legal to own here. Then there's always the random tax "lottery" if the package does get let through.
After speaking to fellow knife collectors and reading many stories similar to the ones here, I decided it's probably best I stick with Canadian retailers. At least half the people I talked to here in Canada that tried ordering a ZT 562 from the U.S. ended up having to re-order again due to the knife being rejected at our customs ("gravity" knife). Sucks that this limits my choice in knives. On the bright side, keeps me from spending as much as I would like to. :P
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To avoid arbitrary restrictions on folders I can understand, but for knives most Canadian retailers are around 50% to 120% more expensive, so it is still way cheaper to order from the US, except from an Ebay seller... I don't even know how Canadian retailers exist with these prices...

For instance, an SOG Fatcat I got for US $289 can easily be CAN $580 to even CAN $780 from Canadian retailers on Amazon or Ebay, this at a 1.2 exchange rate... No joke...


Gaston
 
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