Do Canadians get charges taxes or duties on postal shipments? A customer asked and I told them I didn't know. Said I have never had anyone complain EXCEPT when shipping UPS which we dont do.

James, they do have to pay something when they receive a package from the US - most Canadians know about it. I only use the USPS ("slow" air - 6-10 days) when sending mufflers into Canada, & it is the most economical way by far. FedEx is terrible expensive into Canada, even though that's all I use for my domestic shipments. Also, if I ship anything other than an envelope to Canada, it has to go air - NO ground service! Even if I tried to ship into Windsor across the river!

If the value of the shipment is greater than $20 CAD then Canada Post CAN charge taxes, duty, and a brokerage/handling fee. Unlike UPS and Fedex, they don't always apply these charges, but they definitely can. I've had many packages worth more than $20 arrive with nothing extra owing, but then when you least expect it, for the least likely item, they will want the taxes, duty, and brokerage fees on a $30 item... which can nearly double the price.

My advice to your customer would be to expect to pay taxes and brokerage fees, and to consider it a bonus if the package arrives and they don't have to pay.

Ship with USPS. Usually they don't have any surprise charges when the package shows up and when they do it's fractional compared to what UPS and FedEx bed you over for.

Agreed, same experience when shipping to my Canadian customers, they DO NOT want UPS, some would specify FedEx, but I put a stop to that practice as I would get hit later on "out of the blue" when the merchandise was delivered with some hefty fees due to "shipping adjustments"...USPS as much as you can

Mike

Also my experience

Well the Americans who replied are correct but the most accurate answer came from the Canadian.

As a rule of thumb:

- We can be charged tax - usually on high value items
- Generally NO duty unless the item is shipping directly from overseas and is NEW.
- Ship USPS whenever possible - check rates online for "Canada" as the differ from other international rates.The "paperwork" is minimal and straightforward.

- If selling through Ebay, do NOT use the "Global Shipping Service" Ebay offers. This uses a middleman and just doubles the cost.
- Avoid UPS and FedEx like the plague - 1) there is a brokerage fee of around $35 on all items 2) they charge sales tax on the value of the goods and 3) they usually want a commercial invoice (yes, even for used stuff). In general its just a PITA and more expensive.

Exactly. I tried early on shipping international with FedEx since I already have a FedEx account, & I'd always get "mystery" charges 1-2 weeks after the shipment was sent just out of the blue. They were hefty too. The customer would not allow charging them either, so it was on me. After a couple shipments like this, never again. USPS is the only way to go for anything international.

Yup, USPS, but check usps.com for shipping cost first.
And everybody's increased their shipping prices, don't go by memory.
Only issue I ever had with shipping to Canada was the holding time in their Customs a few times.