Canada - based modelers: Issues with courier companies?

Welcome to the club :)

I was first hit with these fees in 2005, when I started ordering from US supplies for my other hobby as well :) Since then I kept away from sellers that use UPS or Fedex to ship to Canada. Fortunately in the last couple of years or so USPS got a new system or something because many stores that were using couriers before have migrated to USPS.

If you cannot really avoid one of these sellers, there's always storage places like http://cbiusa.com/ that will keep the parcel until you get there, but for me it's too much hassle. An Amerifriend is also very helpful if you have them :)

Yea I'm not sure what the policy is these days for shipments across the border, wonder if 911 has something to do with.  

I think it was last year I ordered a soccer shirt from the states, was lowest price anywhere but they only shipped by courier.  What I didn't know is once it reached the border, they turned it over to a Canadian courier - this is what incurred the extra cost and I was notified a few weeks later by regular mail.  I called the broker and he said the courier should have collected the money when they were at my house (but they just dropped the package off and left).

The post office too use to collect a tariff on anything declared worth over $20.  A few years back they had been on strike and  returned to work just before Xmas.  They waived the tariff duty to get the flood of parcels moving and ever since then have been pretty lax.  I don't know if this is a new policy or they are trying to get the public to use the postal system instead of courier services.

regards,
Jack

I've seen complaints on other modeling forums about Canadian customs, sometimes charging more for the item (in duties) than postage.

In actuality, this isn't the merchant's fault, it is your home country's customs office.

Having said that, your best bet is to try to talk to the merchant prior to ordering to insure they can ship to you in a manner that most benefits you. You would think that in this economy, any chance to make a sale, even if they needed to mail it differently, would motivate them to do so.

It could also be some sort of agreement between your host country and the vendor on which method they are allowed to ship to your country, but I don't know this for sure.

You can also try DragonUSA Online, I found them to be prompt and the recent Father's Day sale (50% off on certain kits) was outstanding. Plus each order earns "Dragon Dollars". I ended up buying a 1/48 scale Bronco Staghound (reg price $33) for just $21 delivered after 50% off sale and adding almost $4 worth of Dragon Dollars to the purchase.

I've ordered only from Sprue Brothers from the States, $40-$60 shipments, have always come to me via USPS + CanadaPost, never been hit with a customs fee of any kind. Maybe I'm just lucky so far??

Vance, when I moved here from the states back in '06, to get my stuff here I used the USPS, about 30+ parcels of varying sizes, and only a few got dinged with customs fees. Leads me to believe that a certain degree of randomness is involved in deciding which ones get charged and which ones do not.

Hi Vance

Thanks for the information regarding Sprue Bros.... I'll make a point of putting them on my "Preferred Dealer" list.

I fully understand that  it's not the dealer's fault for us Canadians getting ripped off by Fedex, UPS etc - But then again, I would then prefer not to deal with them if they don't give me a non-courier option such as USPS etc.

I recently bought a Classic Airframes kit on Ebay for $20 + $10 shipping - and that is exactly what it cost me, b/c the Ebay seller mailed it to me via USPS. That's the way it should work!

Thanks again!

-- Jan N.

Rob Gronovius

I've seen complaints on other modeling forums about Canadian customs, sometimes charging more for the item (in duties) than postage.

In actuality, this isn't the merchant's fault, it is your home country's customs office.

Not exactly. The customs office puts a tax on products not made in North America. The couriers (Fedex/UPS) charge the receiver a fee because they process the customs. This fee is way higher than the few percents that the customs is charging, and can be 40% of the value of the shipment.

On the other hand, Canada Post, which handles parcels sent by USPS, charges either a flat rate of $5 for customs handling, or, most of the time, they just decide that the time spent filling the paperwork and collecting the money costs more than the fee, and the receiver pays nothing. I am talking here about shipments under $200, the ones over this amount will be always subject to customs processing. With Fedex/UPS, even a $5 shipment will be charged $15 or $20.

So yes, it is not the merchant's fault that Fedex charges extortionate "customs" fees. It is their fault for not using USPS when shipping to Canada.

Companies that know what they are doing and want to make money by selling outside US use USPS. See eBay, which is always finding the lowest shipping costs for their merchants, Amazon, or SprueBros and many others.

The ones that do not, like Squadron, should be happy with selling to the huge US market or, at least, specify on the checkout page that they use Fedex and not USPS. It would have definitely saved me $25 and threads like this would not exist.

And by the way, DragonUSA uses Fedex to ship to Canada, so no thanks. But at least they are upfront with it.

Bottom line, if the receiver's country did not require duties, then the couriers would not have to collect the fees.

I don't worry about which courier any particular retailer uses, just the shipping cost to me. I know how much USPS flat rate shipping is. It is around $11 to send a box the size of a 1/35 scale tank model or 1/48 scale jet aircraft kit if I use USPS priority mail. But if I place an order for a couple of kits to Squadron, Sprue Bros, DragonUSA, etc., I am normally charged around $10 shipping. So I figure they use whichever method is more advantageous to US customers.

Squadron charges $5 for orders under $20 and $10 for orders up to $150 (over that is free). I can't mail a kit to the next town over for less than that unless I send it parcel post. So their stateside shipping is very reasonable and I'm happy with whoever they end up using.

Likewise with DragonUSA, I've ordered from them a couple of times recently; once was a $70+ order and the other was under $20. Both times I was charged $7 and change for shipping (interestingly the larger, more expensive order was thirty cents cheaper). FedEx is a pretty good deal there.

You are perfectly right. What applies to shipping within US though does not apply to shipping outside. If I would live in US, I would not have a problem ordering from Squadron or Dragon, or care less what carrier they use. But I don't. And this thread is about shipping to Canada. There are a lot of other companies that care about our market, and I will give my business to them.

Web search on UPS broker fees lead to this site: www.ups.com/.../customs_clearance.html

It clearly shows the added incurred costs.  Also it is up to you to contact them and pay before the item reaches customs, otherwise even more costs are incurred.

So now we know, if you are Canadian and purchase an item to to shipped by UPS, be prepared to be on the receiving end of a very rough ride.

regards,

Jack