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Companies that Still Don't Ship to Canada?
mstich asks: "I'm curious as to why some companies make it so difficult to ship to Canada (from the U.S.A.). I'm only about 200km (124mi) from Detroit, so distance surely can't be the problem. Companies like NewEgg state that they won't ship to Canada, even though they will ship to Alaska (albeit, at an inflated cost) and some, like Crucial, do ship to Canada but they won't extend their 'free second day shipping'. Are there really that many underlying costs that show up when crossing the border? Is this just another money grabber? Does NAFTA fit into all of this, somehow?"
There are a couple of problems, one small, and one not so small.
1. Extra forms to fill out. The company either doesn't want to take the time to fill out the single (small) form, or thinks that the forms will take a long time. Understandable, but frustrating to the paying customer.
2. Irate phone calls from customers who were levied heavy brokerage fees. I was one of these customers a few weeks back, when I got nailed TWICE with brokerage fees (to the US, and back into Canada) for a piece of hardware I sent back for free repair. I bitched so hard at UPS that they dropped the brokerage fees. However, even after that, the cost of the free, under-warranty repair was still $100 US.
Brokerage fees drive me nuts, since most of the time they appear after the fact, and are not consistently applied. This is very frustrating, not to mention expensive.
Also, bear in mind that while a distributor might have the rights for a product in the States, there is no guarantee that they have the rights to distribute that same product in Canada.
Issues like support come into effect; normally, if you buy a product in the States, service for that item are doine through the US based manufacturer, not the manufacturer's Canadian arm.
Some manufacturer's actaully sell different "model" numbers in the two countries with slightly different feature sets. for instance documentation in English & French; not just English..
I worked for an online car parts store, and we refused to ship to Canada. Why? Because when the online store first opened we did ship to Canada, but the package would get held up in customs. On top of that there are additional charges (on top of UPS/FedEX rates) to get it OUT of customs. It became this awful nightmare, getting phone calls from irate Canadians who blamed us when shipping a part from Iowa to Windsor cost $70 and would take 3 weeks. Yes, there are ways around it (I think if you sent it FedEX Air FedEX would take care of customs) but do you know how expensive it is to ship a radiator by air? So, we either stopped offering it or we offered FedEX Air which was extremely expensive.
That's the big thing. The customs documentation and extra costs involved in declaration and shipping are just too big for as small a market as Canada is (I live in Canada).
Why bother getting and filling out the right forms for a small market with its own distribution chain?
I think the customer service hassles when dealing with customs is part of it too. I know that I've been more than a bit pissed off in the past when I paid a hefty sum for shipping, and then got nailed for 2X the shipping cost for brokerage fees by UPS or FedEx Ground.
I imagine that a lot of customers end up bitching out the company they bought the product from, or even refusing to accept the delivery due to the extra fees. It just might not be worth it.
The smarter companies parter with a place like BorderFree.com that specializes in dealing with Canadian customs.
Another thing to consider is that a lot of electronics bought from US stores do not have a warranty in Canada. The super-cheap electronics places in town used to specialize in these "grey market" items. Not illegal to buy them, but if it ever breaks, good luck getting it fixed.
(BTW, if you ever have the choice, pick FedEx Express or USPS for shipping to Canada. Never use UPS or FedEx Ground. While you might think you are saving some money, you get shafted by brokerage fees once the item gets to the border. UPS will hold your package hostage until you pay the fees, and FedEx ground will deliver the package and hit you with a letter demanding the fees up to a month later.)
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What's funny is Companies that will allow you to select Canada as the country, pick from the available provinces, the only give you 5 chars to enter in a zip code. (In Canada we have a six character Postal Code).