It's seems to be the naturally insular nature of Americans or maybe since 9/11 they think it's too much hassle, which makes little sense because shipping into the country is a lot different from shipping out.

I usually just politely ask the seller in a private email if he will ship to Canada. 90% of the time it's not a problem to them. If it is then I have them send it to my best friend who lives in Philly and he forwards it to me.

Because of:

-customs.

-fraud.

-extra documents.

-buyers ask us to commit fraud by understating the value of the goods for duty avoidance. We won't.

-possible problems with payment.

-etc.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I echo what Tom said. I once sold a bike on ebay stating U.S. only. Low and behold the winning bidder was in Canada. I went ahead and completed the deal beacause he was paying more than I expected to get out of it. However I was firm about using Postal Money Orders only. They can be verified and are guaranteed, even crossong the border. All the customs paperwork was a pain though. I would only do it if I was making a good deal of money off the deal.


Nothing personal, just a hassle.



Dennis

I hate that as well, there are a few ebay dealers that will only sell to US regardless of what feedback you have or that little extra you're willing to pay for their 'hassle' for all the extra paperwork involved. I sometimes sell on ebay and ship from Canada to the US...besides one Customs form that has to be completed (which only includes address and contents and value of what's in the package) I don't see any difference than shipping within Canada so I don't really understand either where the problem is. I guess some people aren't willing to do that little bit of extra effort.

I do my share of buying and selling on ebay. Now granted I've never tried to sell anything as big as a bike frame, but I've bought one.

I've noticed that the majority of sellers when asked if they're willing to ship to Canada will say 'yes' even if the auction is listed as 'US only'. So I'd recommend just asking. Before PayPal and BidPay I used to get postal money orders and never had a problem.

As far as shipping is concerned, it's just as easy for me to ship to the US or anywhere else in the world as it is to ship to Canada. I just go to the post office.

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Wilfried Heinle

Artificial Intelligence can never beat natural stupidity.

I sell a lot of stuff through eBay. PowerSeller and everything. I hate shipping to Canada. First, there is no affordable, trackable solution for getting packages there. I can ship through UPS, but the customers get screwed with huge brokerage fees.

I can ship it through USPS, but with the customs strike up there it has taken up to 5 weeks for packages to make it there, and who do the buyers complain to? Me - not that there is anything I can do about it.

I do most of my sales through PayPal, and the seller protection that they offer is no good in Canada, so my risk is much higher if the transaction is fraudulant or if the package gets lost.

I hope we can find another way to ship there, because with the exchange rate the way it is, the Canadians are willing to pay more than people down here, and with the holidays right around the corner...

Some sellers only ship to 48 states, even though the buyer pays shipping. I was thinking on my next for sale item" Will ship to 48 states excluding Mississippi and New York" then let them figure out why.

I have bought things from Foreign addresses and customs does open the pkg. Also I know there are VAT taxes and tarriffs on some goods. But my dear sellers last time I checked Alaska is on the same continent and Hawaii is a state. Ah the pain of paradise. G

"I was firm about using Postal Money Orders only."

????? You can also use PayPal.

Realize that I've done over 200 personal ebay transactions buying and selling and 90% of these have been across the US/CDN boder. Never had a problem.

This was a new ebayer that had 0 feedback rating and was just setting up a new Paypal account. From what I understand Paypal will not protect a seller from charge back (dispute, stolen card, etc) for transactions from the U.S. to Canada. This may have changed as it has been a year now, but I havent taken the time to look into it. I just use Ebay it to move my old stuff on occasion. Beats having a garage sale.

Ditto what Tom said..

Shipping as well.



I sold a boutique frame/fork and clearly stated "US Only". The high bidder was from Singapore and I darn near freaked out. He prompted emailed and said "I had to have the frame, you can send to my US address". We exchanged emails to the point that I felt comfortable he was a "biker" and I quoted him direct shipping (which was competely insane). I ended up shipping to his US address. Overall, a good transaction and nice ebayer. So....I'll still list US ONLY, but will entertain offers when someone emails direct and makes a compelling reason.

I used to ship to Canada but your customs has become very slow. Sometimes shipments would fly right through customs but it wasn’t unusual for items to be stuck in customs for 3 weeks. It got old having customers complain about something that I couldn't control... I sure didn’t blame them for being frustrated.

Ron

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well put and understood given the current state of our customs officials..but if the person buying has been there and done all that and still understands (let's face it..if your feedback is as high as mine the chances of you being a fraud are just as good as they are me being one) that thing will take a while...I fail to see the problem. Some sellers get it into their heads that the whole thing is a great big hassle. If so, ship it to a post office box for us for heavens sake. I'd gladly take a day trip to Buffalo for something that I really want. There are some that won't even do that. To each their own I suppose but one poster put it very well..out dollar is going nowhere but up and we're more than likely to pay more than the item would normally sell for because we just can't buy some things up here (heaven knows why). Sellers not wanting to sell to Canadians are going to be missing out.

Purpose: To explain the best methods for buying an item from a company in the US, and getting it shipped right to your door even if they don’t ship to Canada (or going not too far to pick it up to save some money).

Optional:
Online Currency Converter - Useful in figuring out how much $US equals $CDN: http://www.xe.com/ucc/
The UPS online shipping quoter. Use it to calculate a cost from Mailboxes ETC to your house so you will know the absolute TOTAL cost that it’ll cost you if you decide to have the item shipped: http://wwwapps.ups.com/cost?loc=en_US

Well, here it is! The long lost secret that everyone should know!
First things first: Mailboxes ETC (known as MBE from now on) got bought by UPS in February 2003 and it’s now called The UPS Store (known also as MBE from now on). They are one and the same, just the name changed, and their prices went down.

For this example I will be using the MBE located in Niagara Falls, New York. Their address and information is:

“The UPS Store”
1623 MILITARY RD
NIAGARA FALLS, NY 14304-1745
Tel: (716) 298-4461
Fax: (716) 298-4578
Email: store2194@theupsstore.com
Monday - Friday: 9:00am-7:00pm
Saturday: 9:00am-3:00pm
http://www.mbe.com/usa/MBE2194.htm

Ok, so you see a psycho deal on a website only to notice that they don’t ship to Canada. NO PROBLEM. Using my tried and true methods you can safely, easily, quickly and cheaply import ANY item into Canada, and I mean ANY.

I’ll outline it in steps:

Step 1: Call the Mailboxes ETC that’s closest to you, but on the US side of the border (in Toronto’s case, that’s Niagara Falls, New York. A simple 2 hour drive from tdot. That stores phone number is (716) 298-4461. Give them a call. Tell them that you are expecting a “drop shipment”. They will ask for your name and phone number. Tell them to call you when something arrives for you. That’s it. It costs nothing, you’re not signing up for anything, they don’t ask for any other information. You are simply telling them that if something shows up with your name on it, call me and ask me what to do with it.
Now… “YOUR” Mailbox address is like this (for the Niagara Falls one):

John Doe <- Your name here
1623 Military Rd
Niagara Falls, NY 14304-1745
(416) xxx-xxxx <- Your phone number here

From now on this will be referred to as “YOUR” MBE address.

Step 2: Find the absolutely cheapest price for the item you are looking for. Buy from a respectable company that has a thing on their website that’ll tell you if the item is in stock or not, and when it will get shipped out (like next day or whatever). Call them if you have any concerns. I bought an item from a great looking company, only to find out they were outa business and my credit card still got charged! Phone if any doubt.

Step 3: How do they accept payment? Credit Card? Paypal? Read their shipping policy and see if it says that they’ll only ship to a credit card billing address or a Paypal confirmed address. If it says “NO CANADA ORDERS, NO CANADA CREDIT CARDS, NO CANADA PAYPAL” ignore it all. This will fool them!

Do they take credit cards but only ship to the billing address? No problem! Call your credit card company and tell them that you would like to add a “secondary” address to your credit card. Give them MBE’s address and you are done. (1623 Military Rd blah blah)

Do they take Paypal but ship to a verified/confirmed address only? This takes a little longer. What you need to do is make a new Paypal account (www.paypal.com), with a credit card that hasn’t already been used on Paypal (Use yours if you don’t already have a paypal account, or your girlfriend’s, wife’s, anyone who’ll let you use it for the purchase - hint: don’t tell em ur gonna use it on the internet!), and when signing up to paypal give them “your” address at MBE. If it won’t take your phone number because of the area code, then just put in MBE’s phone number, they never call anyway. After you are all signed up and get your credit card info entered it’ll ask you if you agree to pay $1.95 U.S. to Paypal to verify your account. Do it, and a few days later use PC Banking to check the credit card statement and you’ll see a charge from Paypal (if you don’t have pc banking, just call your credit card company, but some won’t tell you what you want to know). Beside the charge is a few digit number. Once you have it, go back to paypal’s website and login and enter the verification number. BOOM. Instant verified citizen of the United States of America. Now you should have no problems buying from people and paying with Paypal and they’ll never know you’re not in the US.

No credit card? NO PROBLEM. Everyone accepts cash, and I mean EVERYONE! When buying it select that you’ll be paying by money order, BUT DON’T SEND A MONEY ORDER. THEY CAN TELL IT’S FROM CANADA. So, go to your local bank and ask for X amount of US dollars (just round up to the next dollar, people love tips when you pay in cash!). You have two choices, if you’re not in a hurry or aren’t worried about someone stealing your money outa the mail, then just wrap a few pieces of paper around the stack of money and stick it a normal size envelope. Use “your” MBE address as the return address and mail it to the company you want to buy the item from, but they might start asking questions about the Canadian stamp on it, although most don’t know the difference.

What I usually do is a little safer, but a bit more expensive. I just put the money in an envelope without wrapping it or anything and fill out the envelope with “your” MBE address as the return address, and the rest like you were going to mail it to the company you bought the item from. I usually include in the envelope a copy of the e-mail invoice or the order number and my phone numbers and such to contact me, and of course “your” MBE address to ship the item to. I then take the envelope and stick it in a UPS express document pouch/cardboard envelope. Costs about $10 to UPS it to Niagara Falls, NY and they’ll have it in a day or two(secure, tracked, etc.). Make sure to put “your” MBE address as the TO: address when you send it (even though it’ll say you’re shipping it to yourself in the US). Because it has “your” MBE address on it, Mailboxes ETC will call you when they get it and ask you what to do with it. You tell them to open the cardboard document pouch and remove the envelope from the inside. Put the envelope in a new UPS document pouch and ship it to the company listed on the envelope using your name in the return address, not “The UPS Store”. It’ll cost you another $5 U.S. and your cash will make it to the company you are buying the item from in another day or two. They’ll never know it wasn’t mailed from “your” house in Niagara Falls, NY.

I send cash at least 20 times a year and I’ve never EVER had a problem as long as I use UPS to move the money around and the double envelope trick. WORKS DAMN SWEET.

Step 4: Ok, so now you’ve got the item paid for! Once the company ships the item to “YOUR” MBE address and the MBE store calls you and asks what to do, you have a few options:

If the item is small, light or cheap, then just tell MBE to UPS it to you. Give em ur credit card to pay the $ for shipping and it’ll be out that same day. It usually takes three days from Niagara Falls, NY to Toronto. They will ask you what is in the box so they can fill out the customs paperwork. You can lie to the MBE people and have them fake the customs invoice so you’ll pay less tax and/or no brokerage fee, or you can tell them the correct info and value and be safe. If you make them lie on the customs form it can cause two problems: 1. The item won’t be insured for the correct value. If it gets broke by our stupid Canada Customs people then you won’t be covered. 2. If Canada Customs decides to open and inspect the package, and realize you lied about the contents or value, they’ll ding you $65 for inspection and repackaging, and of course all the proper duty, brokerage and tax of the MSRP! Ick. ****SEE SUPER HUGE NOTE ABOUT LIEING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE****

If the item is heavy, extra large, or expensive I recommend driving down to Niagara Falls and picking it up. That’ll save you on shipping and you can also take your girlfriend/wife for some shopping at the Outlet Malls or a tour around Niagara Falls. That’ll put you in her good books for at least a month. The MBE store is really easy to find, just make sure you take the Hwy #409 Lewiston bridge to the USA for Trucks. No line up and they usually just wave you through, don’t even ask who you are. You can find directions on the link at the top of this page for the MBE store. If US customs ask you what you are doing, just tell them that you wanna see the falls from the US side or that you’ll be shopping at the US Outlet Malls.

After you pickup the item from the MBE store you have a couple of more options. I know I know… more options. You can drive it back across the border and tell them that you are importing an Item of $$$ value. If it is over $50US they will give you a card that has a little map and will ask you to report to the Canada Customs and Revenue office to fill out some paperwork. It’s a little scary the first time you do it, but after that it’s pretty easy. It doesn’t cost you nothing but GST and PST.
Or you can lie. What I like to do is find a shop in Niagara Falls, NY that can install or setup whatever I’ve bought, or bring all your USED TOOLS you’ll need to install whatever it is you bought. I say USED because you don’t wanna take brand new tools over the border or you might find you’ll have to pay tax on them coming back across the border… I know… it’s really stupid. This way you’ll have it all installed and setup when you drive it back across and it won’t be as much of a lie when you tell them you didn’t buy anything (I actually bought the items a while ago, I just installed them while I was here… hehe… but don’t tell them that). Or, you can just flat out lie. NEVER TELL THEM YOU DIDN’T BUY ANYTHING! (note: They are not allowed to search your “person” (that’s your body for people who don’t know). So anything you can hide on yourself won’t get you in trouble.) If you tell em that you didn’t buy anything they will usually ask you to pull off to the side and search your car for newly purchased items. BAD BAD BAD. Tell them you bought two shirts at the gap outlet mall, that cost $20 each. He’ll just say thanks and wave you through.

For the two hour drive back you get to play with whatever it was that you installed when you were down there. I bet you’ll either have more horsepower or better music for the ride home! HAHA! I saved myself over $800CDN on one order (12” subs, speaker box, amp, 6 farad cap, dvd player) by using the methods described in this KB article. It’ll work for you too. Buy a whole bunch of stuff at once and get it all done at the same time. I’ll save you some driving, time and money.

OK. SOUNDS KICK ASS RIGHT? WHAT ARE ALL THE COSTS INVOLVED?
Glad you asked. I’ve outlined a few prices above to ship stuff here and there. Here are some more costs you need to consider!
MBE (Mailboxes ETC if you’ve forgot after reading this far) will charge you a bit to handle your packages. To receive a box it’ll cost you $5US for a small box, $10US for a medium box, and $15US for a large box. I don’t know what the dimensions are but you can phone MBE and ask if you want to know. They also charge you $1US per day for every day that you leave a box there (regardless of the size). **NOTE** I am using the word box, so that means that if you order 300 pencils, and they were all in separate boxes, MBE would charge you $5x300! So, tell the company you are buying stuff from that you want everything packed in as few boxes as possible.
If you are gonna be doing a ton of shipments through them you can pay $45 for three months and get an unlimited number of boxes and junk shipped there. Ask MBE for the details. You can also get an after hours KEY that will let you go down there at midnight and get your box. I’ve used it twice and it saves me a bunch of money cause I have them mail the key to me a few days before I know my box will be at MBE, then I just go down the night after it arrives and pick it up. They’ll only do this for people who fill out some forms and allow them to keep your credit card on file.

Other charges you might incur:
UPS will charge you a flat rate of $35CDN for the trouble of bringing any package valued over $9.99US into Canada. SO! If you are going to lie about the value, make it less then $10US to save you the $35CDN to UPS.
***SUPER HUGE NOTE*** Even if you tell MBE to state the item is worth $5 on the customs form, but you insure it for $800 CUSTOMS WILL CHARGE YOU TAX ON THE $800. So, if you lie about the value, only insure it for $1.
And you have to pay our damn government the PST and GST (and duty but only if it’s made in China or something), unless you lie and drive it across without claiming it of course.

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Wilfried Heinle

Artificial Intelligence can never beat natural stupidity.

The company I own does a lot of sales on eBay. And it isn't really that much of a hassel to ship to Canada once you have ordered all the forms. But if the person doing the selling isn't a professional shop of some sort, they are going to have to go down to the post office and sit in line for 30 mins while the postal employees figure out how to fill out customs forms.

For the most part we enjoy our customers from Canada. Don't forget WWII. Just don't ask me to ship to France. Oh...and Italians really are a pain in our butts as well.

Americans may be "insular," but it's funny how everyone sure as heck wants to be a part of our 'island' and complains when they have difficulty doing so. I could call Canada sycophantic but I don't want to start anything.

[reply]It's seems to be the naturally insular nature of Americans


It's statements like these that you make frequently that I find insulting and irritating. The implication is that Americans are backwards and regressive while the Canadians are worldly and sophisticated. Give me a break, please. You, like so many other foreigners, are so eager to jump on America that you miss the point entirely.

It's money plain and simple. It costs significantly more to ship to Canada. It is easier to list a flat shipping cost up front, takes away any ambiguity the buyer might have. It is impracticle and confusing to list two shipping rates for US and Canada, especially since the vast majority of your potential buyers will be Americans. If any Canadian wants to buy they can e-mail the seller and request shipping to Canada with an altered shipping charge, which I always do for them. It has nothing to do with our "naturally insular nature". BTW, watch the redundancy next time.

OK, my apologies. But there are some Americans who have barely even even heard of Canada. So that's why I was insinuating that they may not ship to Canada as they consider us too foreign.

My bad. I won't do it again.

No. Most people think Canada is part of the USA.

"I used to ship to Canada but your customs has become very slow"

And going the other way. It's been this way cross border in either direction since 9/11.

"And going the other way. It's been this way cross border in either direction since 9/11."

This is crap, CG. There is a strike that involves Canadian customs, and it has only been in the past few months. What used to take 5-6 days in early-mid summer has been taking 5 WEEKS. If Canada can get this sorted out, then maybe there will be more sellers willing to ship up there.

I've sent lots of stuff to the US and it can sometimes take longer than before 9/11. I assume customs is probably checking things a little closer than before.

Wilfried - thanks for the excellent advice. I live in your neck of the woods and have often wondered about 'workarounds' to the US-Only predicament. Your very thorough description covers all the bases.

"I used to ship to Canada but your customs has become very slow"
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Yeah , the bone head ca-nucks , even before 9-11 . I sent a video to vancouver. aerial film of Europe, they must have watched it 10 times, as it showed up 2 months later in a torn box.