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Businesses United States

Companies that Still Don't Ship to Canada? 142

Posted by Cliff from the one-big-(divided)-continent dept.
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?"
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Companies that Still Don't Ship to Canada? More

Companies that Still Don't Ship to Canada?

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  • stop whining (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:13PM (#9697622)
    you canadians are all the same with your beady little eyes and your flapping heads

  • IANALBIPOOTV (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:15PM (#9697631) Journal
    Ask a lawyer. Maybe the legal departments of large companies won't allow them to do business in Canada because they don't want to incur the expense of complying with Canadian law.

    Just a guess.
    • on complying wiht canadian law...

      I wonder if would a company have to offer it's website/phone support in both french and english. That might drive the cost of business up a lot.

      Either way, I sure the main problem is with trade regulations and foreign customer management, not so much with physical shipping.

      foreign... interesting word... I wonder if I comes from Foe - Reign: someone under the reign of a foe? Guess it wouldn't kill me to look it up would it.
      • Dictionary.com:

        [Middle English forein, from Old French forain, from Late Latin fornus, on the outside, from Latin fors, outside. See dhwer- in Indo-European Roots.]
      • Actually, even Canadian companies don't have to do this. Many do (mostly ones who are large enough that they serve a significant portion of the country, so they will more than likely have some french customers.

        However, there is no obligation for companies (other than regulated ones like Air Canada, Via Rail, etc.) that aren't based in Quebec to do anything special.
      • One Word: Customs
        that explains the shipping restrictions(NO-ONE will guarantee next-day shipping through a border, since if customs seizes it, for any reason, and "further investigation" is indeed, a valid reason, as far as I know(but IANAL) to detain a shipment for more detailed inspection.

        Local regulation might also be to blame for something else, lots of special prices, etc... only apply for a specific jurisdiction, so some larger retailers might choose not to sell to Canadians, just so they don't have

    • Re:IANALBIPOOTV (Score:5, Funny)

      by jcenters ( 570494 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:50PM (#9698036) Homepage
      Ah, Anal-Bi-Poo TV, isn't that the new pr0n channel?

    • I could be wrong but.. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ... I always thought Canada was part of the US.
    • Probably true. Amazon.com won't ship many electronics or software to Canada because the laws about warranties are different.

  • Not NAFTA (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well, it might in some way, but the big bottleneck is US Customs Service. And Canada's equivalent might be a player in the equation as well.
    • One of our customers is the Senate of Canada. One day I got a call from Canadian Customs asking me what the value was of the updates we where sending the Senate of Candada was. Well I said they where free. The Senate already had bought the software and the updates where included. Well that was just not good enough. So I had to ask, "Why do you care?"
      The answer was so that they could charge themselves and import duty! I had to say,"Let me get this straight? You the goverment of Canada need to charge the gove

  • Customs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by planetmn ( 724378 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:16PM (#9697651)
    I believe that you still need to fill out customs documents. Call UPS and just ask what paperwork they need to ship to Canada.

    • Re:Customs (Score:4, Informative)

      by loftwyr ( 36717 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:35PM (#9697830)
      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?

      • Small market? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by FlyingOrca ( 747207 )
        I don't think too many companies operating in the States would voluntarily shut themselves out of TEN PERCENT of the US market; that's about the proportion in additional sales that Canada would represent.

        In tech, since Canada is arguably the most wired nation in the world (can't recall where I saw the stats, but I did see them recently), the market gains might be even higher. Think that's insignificant? Walk over to your sales department and ask them if they'd like you to boost sales by ten percent. ;-)

        • Re:Small market? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by cdrudge ( 68377 ) *
          Then walk over to your legal department and ask them if they want to deal with Canadian laws. Then walk down to the shipping department and ask them if they want to deal with international shipping. Then go over to the programming people and tell them that they will now have to have different logic for international shipping then domestic shipping. It's not just a free 10%. It does come at a cost.
          • ...are far less of an obstacle than they are made out to be. I order from small specialty companies in the USA fairly often. I sometimes have to pay a shipping surcharge, and always specify that I will clear items through customs myself. However, the big courier companies have all managed to ship my purchases quickly and easily.

            Now postal service is another issue. USPS shipments to Canada get blackholed so frequently it's just not worth it. But really - why use one country's postal service to ship to anoth
            • How do you go about dealing with customs yourself? The big shipping companies have never let me do that. (Well, UPS would let me use my own brokerage service, but there was a $25 charge to send them the paperwork!)

              • I just ask the vendor to instruct the carrier that I will clear the item through customs myself once the carrier notifies me that it has arrived. Then I pick up the paperwork from the carrier, take it over to customs (usually a few blocks, they're all near the airport), clear it, take the completed paperwork back to the carrier, and go home with my stuff. I actually found out about this after UPS tried to charge me more than the original cost to clear some bike parts.

                They like to make things difficult so t
          • also go to the bookkeeping department and ask if they want to process foreign sales.. at least here in Europe these things are treated different regarding to VAT (every 3 months you've got to report the VAT office what you sold abroad, ..), in your own accounting they're also booked different, ..
      • "The customs documentation and extra costs involved in declaration and shipping are just too big for as small a market as Canada is"

        Well they certainly won't grow that market if they keep ignoring it...

    • Re:Customs (Score:3, Informative)

      by Rob Parkhill ( 1444 )
      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 Border
    • Yep... I just got something from New York (I live in Downtown Toronto) and I had to pay brokerage fees and a little duty. Apparently they don't like it when I import Lucky Strike's and get them at 1/3 cost for a carton (13.95 USD regular 55 if you can get them in canada)

      but the biggest thing that annoys me is when I go on my roof to chill and smoke, I can see Buffalo, New York (unfortunatly) and can walk to the US to get stuff... but even if I walk back with the carton, SNAP! duty is put on it.

      And the fre

  • NAFTA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jon787 ( 512497 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:21PM (#9697686) Homepage Journal
    Does NAFTA fit into all of this, somehow?
    If NAFTA fit into this in anyway it would be making the trade EASIER, not harder. Unless I'm completely missing some minor detail about the North American Free Trade Agreement.
    • Ya because we ALL know that the government uses applicable names for everything.
    • NAFTA reduces the duties on items shipped across the border between certain types of parties, but it doesn't reduce the paperwork... In fact, it adds a form.
    • And does 'easier' mean that Canadian have to pay extra duties on electronics, etc. that gets shipped to them, while American receiving stuff from Canada do not? Because it is certainly 'easier' in this sense.

      Mind you American do pay something I believe, but a heck of a lot less than Canadians do.

      Seems to me we got the bad end of the deal. I guess we have Mulroney to thank for all this...

  • Customs forms and Brokerage fees (Score:5, Informative)

    by andawyr ( 212118 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:23PM (#9697704)
    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.

    • Re:Customs forms and Brokerage fees (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The brokerage fees levied by the couriers (or their shill companies.. the "brokerage houses") are, to put it simply, a scam.

      "We charged you an extra $50 for brokerage to clear customs" == "We saw you coming and soaked you for some more cash"

      It's your legal right to clear the package yourself (or get your own broker). Of course, in those cases the shipper says you have to pick it up in their warehouse in {vancouver, toronto, st. john's NFLD, whichever is farthest from you}.

      The worst for this is UPS, t

      • "It's your legal right to clear the package yourself (or get your own broker). Of course, in those cases the shipper says you have to pick it up in their warehouse in {vancouver, toronto, st. john's NFLD, whichever is farthest from you}. The worst for this is UPS, then DHL. The best method to ship to Canada is USPS (yes, the post office). Canada post charges a flat $5 for packages, and that's usually just to assess GST charges (which you have to pay anyway)."

        DHL is bad?

        Earlier this year I bought a bunch

    • The first time a big brown courier company tried to charge me for brokerage, I dug into it a bit and discovered that I can clear stuff through customs myself for a tiny fraction of their charge. Since then, every item I order from the States has been accompanied by two crucial words: "clears own". In other words, have the shipper instruct the carrier that you will clear it yourself.

      Now, if you're not in a major centre that might be a bit of a pain in the ass. I'm in Winnipeg, though, and it's a piece of pi
      • Yup, this will work, as long as you do NOT ship via UPS Ground. You do not have the option of clearing it through Custom's yourself if this is the case.

        However, living in Winnipeg, which is the major point of entry for UPS Ground, you may have that option. In Calgary, we don't.

        So, NO UPS for me. Ever.
        • That's kind of my general rule, too (with the exception of my trusty power supply). Mostly because after the aforementioned episode, they sent me threatening letters for three months (despite numerous calls to their customer disservice line) asking me to pay the brokerage fees they'd already cancelled! Wankers.

          • Hmph... ditto for my girlfriend, I thought she just had bad luck, but they screwed up delivery, screwed up the bill, screwed up billing, then screwed up cancelling the billing and finally, screwed up cancelling the collection agency which they screwed up by calling to collect for the screwed up bill.

            There were about 5 lengthy phonecalls involved, 2 letters of apology and probably about 3 hours of time.

            She then tried to use the privacy act to have them destroy all her personal information as she never wa

    • I wonder about exactly how legal these "brokerage" fees are.

      Firstly, you've got the postal rate for shipping a package to Canada. They know that they'll likely have to assess a package for tax if it's crossing the border. You've already paid your fee for the postal service, why shouldn't that be included (and yes, I know it depends on the value of the package, but that's b.s. in itself since it doesn't cost any more to assess tax on a $250 package than a $50 one)

      Secondly, you as the reciever are 90% of

  • Warranties / Distribution Rights / ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by peterjt ( 50113 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:24PM (#9697711)
    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..

  • Many reasons (Score:2, Insightful)

    by twoflower ( 24166 )

    There are several reasons; one is that the necessary paperwork to get the package through customs is a pain in the ass for the seller. They don't want the hassle.

    Another reason is that many sellers only have permission to sell products in the U.S.A. -- i.e., they haven't bought the rights to sell the product in Canada. You need to find another distributor who has bought those rights, but sometimes that's difficult because the (smaller) Canadian distributor isn't nearly as well-known.

    • Yeah, that little green USPS form is so complicated... Description, Value, tick Merchandise, sign your name. 10 seconds.

      The other problem mentioned by others, delays in Customs, I've found almost always the reason is that the seller screwed up. They'll tick gift instead of merchandise, trying to save the customer some money. They'll undervalue the item, or leave it off entirely.

      Stuff like this seems to route the package into the "cavity search" group. They'll spend weeks investigating realistic prices,

  • Some companies have return, replacement, or warranty policies that say they'll pay the shipping in certain circumstances. Since shipping to canada costs a lot more (fees, tarrifs, etc), that can cost them a lot of money.

  • Horse's mouth (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jguevin ( 453329 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:29PM (#9697774)
    Have you tried asking any of the companies in question? Believe it or not, they may be staffed by humans who can answer your questions.

    Crap, I sound like a troll.

    • "Have you tried asking any of the companies in question? Believe it or not, they may be staffed by humans who can answer your questions."
      ----------

      If they're not interested in taking money from Canadians, they probably wouldn't be interested in spending the time to answer them, either.

      Also, a lot of the reasons why companies don't ship to Canada come from laziness or ignorace of what's required, legally and customs-wise, to ship to Canada. Companies don't want to admit to that!
    • No, your post is very insightful. Instead of using "Ask Slashdot" for a firstline of techsupport, most of the tools who send these questions in should simply do the obvious thing. That being, either google for it, or ask the person/entity involved. 90% of the ask slashdot questions can be solved in one of those ways and it's usually quickly pointed out in the comments.

  • customs (Score:5, Informative)

    by flabbergast ( 620919 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:34PM (#9697822)
    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.

  • Customs and scams. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by isaac ( 2852 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:35PM (#9697832)
    Problems with shipping to Canada:

    CBSA are notorious for holding up packages for weeks for customs clearance. Sometimes things "go missing."

    Cross-border claims for goods damaged/missing in shipment are a giant hassle. In certain high-value businesses (like computer parts), there are plenty of fraudsters who take advantage of this, claiming goods never arrived and disputing the charges.

    It doesn't matter to the merchant whether the recipient has committed fraud or the item has been stolen or destroyed in shipment or customs clearance - they still end up eating cost. Apparently this happens sufficiently often with trans-border shipments that a lot of computer vendors won't ship to foriegn countries, or even to "America Junior". ;)

    Compounding the issue are territorial reseller agreements - some manufacturers limit a reseller to domestic sales only. If you sell some items that you can't sell to a foreign buyer, it's often easier to reject all foreign orders than to have to check each order for said items.

    -Isaac

    • As per the recipient claiming goods were missing, etc... how is this any different from shipping to a local?

      When I get a package, it must be signed for indicating it appears to be in good shape and seems to be together, etc. Anything that hasn't arrived... not signed for.

      You can check that it was signed off upon receipt, you know.
  • "I'm only about 200km ..."
    thats the reason.
  • Customs.

    I used to have to get stuff shipped from the US to Canada, and I was constantly running into customs issues. And yes, this was after NAFTA.
  • In addition to the legal risks and direct costs others have mentioned, It's a lot cheaper to develop an e-commerce product that only supports U.S. domestic shipping and payment methods. Often the APIs for foreign locations require a complete re-work of the product... it's twice as much work to write a postal code and province validator for another country, so you have to justify the time and expense. Not to mention if you're doing things right you're quoting prices in loonies not USD. It's not that muc
  • Is that _still_ a separate country? Damn, I thought we annexed them a long time ago.

    I'm not sure I could respect any country that considers a 'Smartie' a stale-tasting M&M-like candy. Yuck.

    Okay, I'll concede - we'll take BC and the Yukon; you can keep the rest. That way we can get to and from Alaska (over land) without going through customs. Getting through the US/Canada border is about 50 times harder than the US/Mexico one. (Fact)
    • I don't want BC, b/c Vancouver is there, and that city has admitted they lost the war on drugs.

      And I've had equally hard times getting abck from TJ as from BC - though Mexico doesn't charge to leave their country.

      -bZj
      • Flamebait? Flamebait?

        The Moderator has obviously never been to Vancouver. I didn't make that shit up - that quote cam from residents of the city! Then it was proved to me, by having to step over needles while walking down town.

        Psh... flamebait.

        -bZj
    • we'll take BC and the Yukon; you can keep the rest

      If you anex any part of canada you have to take Quebec. You know you want to.

      Imagine, the US with a near monopoly on maple syrup, and that stupid-looking disturbing clown from the Quebec winter carnival will be yours! He'll frighten any evil-dooer to surrender.

  • I know, I know... (Score:4, Funny)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @12:47PM (#9698004)
    It's mostly our fault. We mericans have treated you Canadians like you are part of the US for so long, that now you're actually starting to believe it.

    Sorry, you really are in a different country.
  • Believe it or not, there are plenty of US companies that cannot store Canadian addresses in their databases. It is quite common for in-house software systems to expect numeric postal codes, and postal codes of exactly length 5.

    Most people in the US tend to look at you funny the first time they hear you say "postal code" instead of "ZIP code".

    • Re:Int'l Address Issues (Score:3, Informative)

      by Nos. ( 179609 )
      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).
      • but so annoying, is going on "mapquest.ca" but it just pointing to mapquest.com, as opposed to maybe the Canadian version (say you go to global maps etc). It'd be nice if it pointed to the global maps and had Canada as the default. :(
      • Hmmmm....

        This must be some new definition of the word funny that I am unfamiliar with.
      • This is even more asinine when you consider that full U.S. ZIP codes are nine digits and a hyphen. Only the first five are required for most mail, but if you know all nine, you should use them. At the very least, it provides some sanity checking against the rest of the address.

        Mal-2

  • Black market, dude (Score:5, Funny)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @01:10PM (#9698264) Journal
    I'm curious as to why some companies make it so difficult to ship to Canada (from the U.S.A.).

    I don't know why, either, but I can suggest a practical work-around:

    1. Find an elderly person in the Lower 48 states who takes a bunch of expensive prescriptions drugs. That's nearly any old person, so this part is easy.

    2. Offer to ship the old fart some of your cheap Canadian versions of prescription drugs. Given the exorbitant prices of the same drugs in the U.S. will immediately agree to your proposal. Then have gramps ship you cheap American electronic products in exchange.

    3. Profit!

    (This comment is a satiric joke about the American health "care" system. It is not advocacy for or instruction in black market cross-border transactions. orthogonal is not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. orthogonal is not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Void where prohibited. orthogonal loves America and its great Christian Leaders King George Bush, Failed Marshall von Rumsfeld, and Inquisitor General John Ashcroft. Scaring peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty... only aid[s] terrorists [by eroding] our national unity and diminish[ing] our resolve. [cnn.com] We have always been at war with Eastasia!)

    • That's Field Marshall von Rumsfeld, peon! The field marshall thinks we need to have a talk with you at our happy-fun vacation island south of Florida! Don't worry about making arangements yourself, we'll get you there at no cost to you.

      - PFC RustyTaco
  • Well, we endure the WASP hatred of North America, so we get the good stuff. Canadians don't have to deal with such hatred, so they don't get the goodies.

    Even Steven, in the end....

    -bZj

  • Try Local (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sepper ( 524857 ) on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @02:00PM (#9698826) Journal
    If you can't get it shipped, try buying Local! If a company is willing to ship it here (Canada), they probably have a Candian version of the Store.. Like Tigerdirect [tigerdirect.ca] or Amazon [amazon.ca] (although Amazon.ca doesn't have much compared to Amazon.com)

    Or simply buy at a local store... Like the Vermont public TV said: "A dollar spent in Vermont stays in Vermont"... Apply where you live...

  • Paperwork. You have to fill out more forms when shipping internationally. That and their streamlined shipping process probably doesn't fit in with the extra work/alternate shipping methods.
  • just another ploy to try to take over the world. First Canada. Then Mexico. Then the rest of the world.
  • 1. Going through customs is a pain in the ass.
    2. See #1.
    3. See #2.

    Shipping to Canada is no easier than shipping to Mexico, England, Russia, China, or any other country. It takes less time, but the process is still the same. I've sent a few items to Canada and thus far have not had a problem, but I've been sending used items of small value. Not new computer equipment that I'm sure would be held up.
  • Our company recently created a mess for ourselves trying to ship something to Canada when a critical shipment was returned to us because we didn't have the proper customs forms filled out. We do low-volume, high-cost sales, so we just double the shipping costs now to Canada just like for other foreign countries, but I can see a large-volume, low-margin company deciding not to deal with any of it.

    The whole thing surprised me. I figured what with NAFTA and crossing the border so easily that shipments wouldn'

  • Credit Card Address Verification (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Michael Spencer Jr. ( 39538 ) * <spamNO@SPAMmspencer.net> on Wednesday July 14, 2004 @05:13PM (#9701175) Homepage
    I work for a major credit card processor. Don't worry, I'm already at the karma cap.

    Electronic credit card processing systems have an address verification service available. My company primarily uses Vital Processing Services (vitalps.com) and that system's address verification service supports checking the leading digits of the street address, as well as the billing zip code. It does this by sending an address-verification query to systems owned by whatever bank owns that card. That bank checks that query against their billing information for that customer, and reports back if some or all of the address information matches ("ZIP MATCH", "EXACT MATCH", "NO MATCH", etc.)

    This address verification service only supports numeric zip codes and street addresses. If address verification is attempted against a Canadian address, the address verification system returns SYSTEM NOT AVAILABLE. (It's not available because the bank that issues that card is in a foreign country, even if someone types in a 5-digit zip code when doing the transaction.)

    It's impossible for an Internet merchant to get perfect protection against fraud while accepting payment from Visa or Mastercard, but they can eliminate many of the common sources of fraud by always using a tracking shipping carrier (and getting a signature proof of delivery every time), and only shipping to an address that the address verification system indicates a match with. (If the customer is ordering an item as a gift, sending it to a different address than they receive their credit card billing statements at, best practices state the merchant should ask the customer to call their bank and "whitelist" that shipping address.)

    Since many (most?) processing systems' address verification services don't support international address verification, most merchants must choose to either ship merchandise internationally without getting an address match, or to manually find the phone number for the bank that issued the card and *call them*. (Merchants who accept credit cards are given access to a system that lets them look up the first 6 digits of a Visa card or the first 11 digits of a Mastercard and find the bank that issued that card.) For small merchants, or merchants with occasional big-ticket purchases, they can take the time to personally attend to those transactions and make phone calls. For a large discount Internet superstore of some kind, though, they just don't have time to personally handle every address-mismatch.

    So for convenience, they just refuse to accept cards that return a SYSTEM NOT AVAILABLE address-verification match.

    --Michael Spencer
    • For anyone using Paypal from Canada... this also seems to apply. As I've used it for 2 years many times over, but it still shows that my actual address is unverified...
    • on the billto:, I just put my canadian street address/city, and then put MI in the State, and a michigan zip code in.

      And then I put my US mailing address in the shipto:

      Works a lot more than you'd think, some CC verifiers only check that your name and street address matches.

      Some places only check that your name matches...
  • The customs problem is a big one, or more acurately, the god awful UPS brokerage charges, which usually far exceed the actual duties.

    What's funny is that there are lots of companies who manage to ship to Canada, or even to drop ship large groups of items and then ship from within the country.

    It is possible to handle Canadian orders successfully and without surprises, and some retailers even have sites that will calculate brokerage and duties before you commit to the order.

    Ultimately it really comes down
  • There's a problem with that as the shipper has no way of controlling how long Customs will take to deal with the package. On the other hand , my dealings with Crucial shipping to me in Canada have been wonderful. 4 days is pretty good turnaround considering it spent half that in customs.

    /me *heart* Crucial

  • If you are not too far from the border lookup a store that has mailboxes. In the past I have used a UPS store just across the border. The UPS store I use charges $5 per shipment, and dosen't require any addition paperwork or other nonsense. I just give them a call before ordering. As a bonus the store has a real shipping address, not a PO BOX so all companies will deliver there.

    Also some shops don't have an online order form for a Canadian address, but if you call they will sometimes ship to you. Due to br

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