Why are some Americans afraid to ship to Canada?

Really, it's ridiculous if you think about it. I've been buying , selling, trading audio gear as a passion for over 10 years. Many times I've experienced americans refusing to ship an item to Canada and wanting to keep their sale within the US. If you think about it ,what will hapen if you ship to Canada? If anything I will be the one getting brokage duty fees to pay. For the sender it is just a matter of sending the package to another country , no different than sending the same package to the US, that's about all there is to it. Probably has to do with the exagorated patriotism of the american person, I am not putting down Americans but you got to admit it has to do a bit with pride. People should learn how to open up a little , might not change much for you but it is a big change to others

 

It's like everything else, personal choice. I just shipped an Elvis Blu Spec to Canada. I had to fill out a little customs form, and it cost me just over $4.00.

 

1) Fear of lost packages
2) Long line ups at post offices
3) Having to fill out those darned forms
4) Sellers are imitating Half.com


I am sure there are other reasons but they don't come to mind at the moment.

 

Being asked to lie by the customer on the customs form, e.g. "gift." However trivial, I'm not lying on a federal form.

 

I can understand their reluctance. In order to ship to Canada more paperwork is involved as is a trip to the post office.

Sometimes it's worth asking the seller if they would consider posting to Canada as some will

Eddie

 

I don't like the fact that First-Class International postage isn't an option on PayPal.

 

For me it is absolutely nothing at all to do with the reasons you assert. It has everything to do with the sky high prices for tracked shipping out of the USA. Not to mention I can ship right from home if I am shipping within the USA. If I ship out of the USA I have to make a trip to the post office, wait in line and fill out a form. I do, do this for some forum members though.

 

I ship anywhere.

 

For whatever reasons a USA seller will not ship to Canada can be frustrating to understand > but, I find that it's rare. IMO most Americans seem very accommodating when it comes to shipping packages to the Great White North. And, if he/she refuse to ship over the border, then there's usually another seller with same or similar item that will.

 

1) Items shipped to Canada don't include tracking that is acceptable to PayPal unless you pay a lot of money
2) Loss in transit is higher than shipping domestically
3) Time to delivery can vary widely, is not very predictable, and there are pain in the a-- buyers who are not sympathetic to that
4) International shipments require use declaration forms and the items must be handed in person to a USPS representative.
5) If you ship by UPS or FedEx, they only make a "best effort" attempt to collect duty fees at the receiver end, and if they can't/don't, they charge the seller. This can be a very unpleasant surprise for first time users of these services to Canada (and a reason that many are never second time users of these services to Canada).

I will ship most items that I sell to Canada, but I prefer sales to the US for the above reasons.

I won't ship anything that can't be reasonably shipped by the USPS, due to the duty issue.

 

I prefer not to ship to Canada for a couple reasons.

First, I can ship to the US with a couple minutes of work at my office. Shipping to Canada means I have to physically go to the post office to handle, which in New York City takes about 40 minutes out of my life.

Second, because shipping to Canada costs more, if I have an problem that requires me to take back the item, I lose a lot more money dealing with a return, and possibly time instructing the buyer how to properly ship the item back to the U.S.

 

I've had bad experiences about 75% of the time that I ship to Canada. The most common problem is that the buyers want the cheapest possible shipping method, but then they complain about the amount of time it takes to get there.

When shipping to the USA I'd say that the rate goes down to less than 5% problems.

 

I make it clear on anything I sell (at least on eBay) that the buyer is still responsible for shipping both ways, even in the event of a refund. I had a case where a Canadian buyer demanded a refund of the customs duty, which I told him was not covered in my refund policy. I clearly said: "if you're not happy with the item after 10 days, I'll give you a full refund of your final bid price." Now, I make it clear in my boiler-plate conditions that the buyer has to pay for shipping, customs duty, and any other charges; and I only refund the money after the item comes back and is in my hands.

The Canadian buyer and I had a lot of back-and-forth arguments (which weren't helped by the fact that he had some problems with English and had a temper), but eventually it worked out fine. But tracking International shipments from the U.S. can get expensive, complicated, and time-consuming, especially with small items. I don't mind shipping out of the U.S., but after a certain point, the economics are not great for the buyer.

 

People who have issues with it for the most part are just plain lazy, and/or ignorant of the facts. I ship stuff all over the world, and have no problem with it.

a) declaration forms aren't that big of a deal, as after you have filled one out it is simple to do others (it's really not that complicated); I keep extras at home, and have everything filled out, including a shipping label, before I go to th P.O.;
b) geez, just how hard is it to go to the post office;
c) yeah, it costs more, but people in other countries are usually more than willing to pay for the extra costs, and any time I allow international shipping I make it clear that people should enquire about the shipping costs before biddng (I rarely have problems with it);
d) I have often sold items for much more to out of country buyers, which more than makes up for any extra work;
e) insurance is somewhat higher for international USPS, but, again, I pass it on to the buyer, with their knowledge;
f) with USPS you don't have to worry about customs expenses from our end, and who the hell do you think is going to come calling if you mark an item as 'gift', homeland security? lol;
g) tracking is not more expensive, if you figure out that all Priority mail packages have tracking at no extra charge; USPS denies that they include tracking, but all of them can be tracked using the customs declaration form number, which is unique to each form; once I figured that out Priority is all that I have used for cross border shipping;
h) the only extra delays you might encounter is usually for customs clearance; other than that I have found that the USPS 6-10 business day delivery quote for international to be very accurate, with most coming in well under the 10 day limit;

You might be surprised at just how much more money can be made by offering sales internationally. People in other countries are often very eager to buy stuff from the US that they cannot get otherwise. I also buy lots of items from overseas, and have rarely had issues with that either.

 

Thanks for that. Spot on!

 

In some cases I think it's the fear of those customs forms leaving a paper trail for the IRS.

 

Now if that ever actually becomes an issue, then I will have second thoughts about it, but I'm not that paranoid yet. Not yet, lol!

 

In Little Rock, it is only a 20 - 30 minute procedure but I do it from time to time despite the fact most items I sell are the $10 variety. There is no way it is worth the time to mess with it and the risks are much greater and there is no way to overcome these issues so I certainly understand why people in the US don't do it for small items. It has absolutely nothing to do with being afraid and everything to do with the fact it isn't worth the trouble.

 

I didn't mind it at all when I lived five houses in from the corner the Post Office is on, but now it's kind of a schlep. What has also changed (thank you, internet) is that it's possible to mail stuff from home now if I'm shipping within the US. The Postal Service has always picked up First Class, under 13 oz. envelopes (CDs, IOW), but now, if you use one of the Priority Mail services, which are somewhat less expensive than the original Priority Mail prices, they'll pick up heavier stuff, too--up to 70 pounds, I think.

So having to go to the Post Office is becoming something of a thing of the past. Which is nice, because sometimes the people who work there seem determined to be the worst part of your day. There's one who works at my local who really, truly should not be dealing with other people.

But if I'm selling something and someone asks, I'm usually, like, "sure, why not?" Long before PayPal, I used to sell a lot of stuff to people all over the world. Some of them sent cash, and nothing ever got lost. People who don't have access to everything we can buy in the USA, they really appreciate being able to buy stuff. If I thought about it at all before the internet, I probably assumed people in Europe had access to even more, or better, records than we had.

One of the most touching moments of my life was getting an e-mail from someone in Sweden for whom I'd assembled a collection of Beach Boys LPs the day after 9/11, extending his sympathy over what had happened. And then another one from someone in Hungary. And then Australia.

I did have an amplifier get lost in Canada once. The mailman accidentally delivered it to his parents' house, about 5 minutes away, but at a completely different street address. I don't remember how it got straightened out, but I had to call the Post Office in Canada.

The only place I've otherwise had stuff get lost was Los Angeles, on three separate occasions.

 

Undeliverable items to Canada don't get returned to the sender, they're auctioned off.

There's no seller protection unless much more expensive shipping services are imposed upon the buyer.

 

Most Canadians don't get the 'I have to go to the Post Office' thing because we cannot ship even domestically from home like you can in the US. We have to go to the Post Office regardless. Most are probably not aware you can mail/ship wthin US from your door. If I tried to give a letter with a stamp on it to my Postal person )) they would refure to take it.... great service we have.

I have asked a great deal of eBay/Audiogon etc shippers if they would ship to Canada, and even though their listing may say 'no' generally they are acceptable to do it. In my case I try and explain that I am willing to pay a bit more for their time (because I know they have to leave the house to ship).

Unfortunately with Sellers who are paranoid that people are dishonest (and there are dishonest Buyers in every country), even Priority Int'l at around 18-28USD will not suffice with PayPal as Proof of Delivery, as all the info will have is 'Delivered', rather than 'to such and such address' and with a signature as received. To ship in order to satisfy PayPal is so costly as to negate any 'deal' we would get by purchasing in the US.

In the hundreds of items I have purchased on eBay, Audiogon, etc from the US, I have had 1 item go missing. I understood the risks and trusted that the Seller shipped, so did not neg feedback. I paid for the item again and the Seller re-shipped. He offered to send for free but I declined.

Some Buyers are dicks and don't understand it takes 4-6 weeks for letter mail from US, and some Sellers are dicks and cannot be bothered to see if they can expand their range of sales for a little bit more effort.

 

USPS customs forms have a check box for requesting that any undeliverable goods are returned to sender, if so checked. That form stays on the package all the way to the buyer.

Priority mail is also always the best option for international, as you can track it, and insurance is available which you should be passing on to the buyer. It's easy to check overall costs on the USPS website.

I don't know about paypal claims for lack of delivery, but that is why I always insure things through USPS, unless the item being shipped is dirt cheap.

 

I rarely am refused a purchase because I live in Canada and the seller lives in the USA, but in the past, three different sellers have refused to ship outside of the USA and have given me that reason as an excuse [fear that the customs slip will provide the IRS with evidence of their income].

I have also been told that the IRS monitors ebay. How's that for paranoid.

 

From my perspective, the USA is big enough. If I can't sell my item to someone within the 50 states, then I'll sell it at my local used cd store.

 

That is paranoid, lol.

Nothing like isolationism to really bring things into perspective. How's life in the bunker, by the way?