Shipping to/from Canada/USA....

[Ykick]

This tangent began in another thread and since it's probably important enough to discuss at length for the good of the community, I wanted to continue the topic in it's own thread:

ebay store does not ship to Canada, I believe Yescomusa ships to Canada.
I dont understand why companies do not ship to Canada.
Example: I was looking at Fatheadz Sunglasses, love them, they fit my fat head. Willing to pay more for shipping. Nope. OK Next.

I dunno how it works from your direction but in my experience shipping packages USA-to-Canada is extremely costly, non-trackable and difficult for an individual to do. Maybe I'm missing something and considering the large number of you good folks on ES perhaps a topic of discussion is in order?

I feel terrible limiting my few personal sales to Canada but I've been burned in the past for something that sat in Customs for months - I had no choice but to refund and write off a total loss. If not for the honest buyer who contacted me months later once the package finally arrived and he voluntarily re-paid for the item I would've eaten a very large chunk of money.

So, how is it reasonably done from an individual to ship small-medium boxes, packages to Canada? I never seem to be able to choose tracking method that isn't ridiculously expensive, what carrier is generally the best and how to deal with the damn customs declarations?

hk has no issues getting huge boxes full of lipo up here. they have the hazmat sticker and done via ups.
dhl did a cromotor from methods to me , charged an extra 20 bux import fees.....

generally anything heavy u dont want ups or fedex. they hammer u with fees when delivered.......

usps is ok yet slow.

I know businesses handle shipping easy/simple enough to Canada/USA but whenever I've fulfilled personal eBay/PayPal sales it always seems to be a hard nut to crack with enough seller protection (tracking) and forms to avoid holdups in customs.

Thoughts, techniques, ideas? Please....

 

[silviasol]

Small items under 3 ounces are about $6 for tracking and air mail speed, heavier items are $30 and up with tracking. I stopped shipping to canada when they changed the ebay rules to need confirmed tracking. Later they added tracking to the first class mail but it went up from $2 to $6. I started to use it but they would only scan it as delivered half the time and there really is no way to call them to fix this issue. Now I don't even bother shipping there because it is only maybe 2-3% more sales vs US sales and just isn't worth it putting the minuet, microscopic maximum amount of selling issue's ebay allows for you to stay in top rated and save 20% on final value fee's which will dwarf the sales that shipping to canada will bring in, also this top rated status gives them an advantage over other sellers making their items higher up in best match searches. And when a seller starts a case because the tracking does not say it is delivered but most likely has it, damage to my account plus lost money. USPS also has updated US tracking system which is getting better but still have about 2-3 items every month that do not get scanned as delivered. So in short it is an issue with both ebay's "seller defect" policy which in turn is affected by usps's current poor tracking system so the seller wants the best selling option of staying a top rated seller it is to stick to US sales only.

 

[hydro-one]

I shipped a whole bike from california to manitoba, i had it shipped to a north dakota store called mikes which will hold parcels for a nominal fee. then i drove the 1.5 hours from winnipeg, took it out of the box and drove back over the border. was not assessed any fees.