Shipping to our Friends in Canada

Thank you for considering us in the frozen north...

My preference, just because of where I live, is the post office.

UPS brokerage fees are absolutely outrageous up here. How about a $60US fibreglass saddlebag lid for a Harley (no duty on harley parts) that wound up costing $279CDN by the time UPS got through with it? And.....they sent it via Canada Post anyway because they don't service rural areas. They also will not deliver to a PO Box number or a land description (rural address) which is all some of us have. We don't have street addresses or local mail delivery. So....I ended up paying them (UPS)major money to use the post office! As parcel services go, Purolator is much better, followed by FEDEX. I will never deal with UPS again on anything.

Oh, a funny note about country living. Once i was arguing on the phone about this very subject and the woman, exasperated when I maintained that I have no street address and wanted my shipment sent via mail, to my PO Box number, asked me, "ok....if your house was on fire and you called 911, what address would you give them?" I said, "Well, it would burn to the ground if I did that cuz we don't HAVE 911 here, but if I called the fire department, I'd have to tell them "Stan Harrisson's Old Place" even though old Stan's been dead for 40 years, or they'd never find it." Or they always want to know my cell phone number. Well, go-o-ollee! Cell phones don't work here..... .DUH! City people just don't get it! One woman when I was ordering computer parts asked me what my address was listed as in the phone book. "Farm" sez I. She then asks, "Yeah, but where?" "Right in the phone book, after my name, it says Farm..... .as an address, just like nearly everyone else in my local phone book. That's how we're listed by the phone company" She nearly had a heart attack laughing at that one. "What's so funny about living on a farm?" I says. "I just had this vision of a hick in bib overalls chewing on a piece of straw typing at the computer" she says, still laughing. SHEESH!

That's Moosomin, SK the 0's are zeroes.

Most of what I have bought are manuals shipped by mail. The postage either way is is substancially more than rates within either country. I will also warn you of another little annoyance shipping via UPS. They are very very economical within either country. When you do cross border shipping with them, the brokerage fees for clearing customs is often as much as the shipping. The net result is the good old Canada Post and the good old US postal service are less money.

I have an item right now, a guy in NY wants, and it weighs about 40 lbs. I am 35 miles from the border (Port Huron MI) If I drive to Port Huron, go through customs, ship from Port Huron, via UPS, it can be done for $22. USD. Problem with that is I wouldn't have a return address. I can ship from here via UPS, $35. CAD plus a brokerage fee I will be billed for. I can ship via Canada Post on to US mail, to the customer for $60. CAD.

I have been told, and not just sure of the whole story, there is a parcel sitting in a warehouse, with a $1,600. brokerage fee against it and no one is willing to pay that fee. As I said I don't know the whole story, I do know enough to be careful and advise others to check out these extra charges.

Another item in shipping into Canada, is our beloved Goods and Services Tax. I had a guy send me a manual and put on parcel it was worth $1. No tax was applied. I had another manual actually cost me less but shipper put on parcel, value of book plus cost of shipping for insurance purposes. I paid 15% on the total.

I just throw this in being my experience.

I just received a check from the US in USD and of course deposited to my USD account. I must check that one out as well.

• UPS