Why do U.S. retailers have such a love for UPS? I know that UPS does a good job to and from points within Canada, and I'm sure that UPS works just fine between one ZIP code and another. Shipping from the U.S. to Canada is another story altogether.
Whenever I wish to purchase something from the States, I always ask if the retailer is willing to ship via Air Mail (US Postal Service), explaining that a) UPS is a lot more expensive than it looks, and b) since I work shift work, I'm rarely available to accept packages at the door. I'm invariably told that they either won't ship USPS, no matter what, or that they will ship USPS, but with no guarantee of delivery (if I agree to that condition, I might as well burn my money).
So, that leaves me with one option: UPS.
Well, the brown truck arrived today (one day late) with my flashlights, and as usual, I had to pay an outrageous amount of money to get them to hand over my package.
What follows is a comparison between shipping via Air Mail, and UPS. Unless stated otherwise, all prices are in Canadian dollars ($CAD). $100 CAD is about $63 USD or £44.
I ordered just under $500 (USD) worth of merchandise, which equates to $763.61 CAD. When bringing anything into the country (regardless of shipping method), one must pay retail taxes and a "processing fee". Taxes are 15% of the merchandise value, so $114.54 in this case. The Post Office charges $5.00 to process the package. "Processing" involves looking at the value indicated on the outside of the box, converting it to Canadian funds and calculating the tax.
USPS Air Mail -
Shipping cost: $24.66
Processing fee: $5.00
TOTAL: $29.66
4-7 day delivery time; held at the "Postal Outlet" 1 block away for me to pick up at my convenience.
United Parcel Service - http://www.ups.com/canada/using/software/currentrates/engcustoms_rates.html
Shipping cost: $28.63
Processing fee: $46.95
Fee for collecting the above fee at my door: $4.00
Fee for advancing the taxes on my behalf: $5.50
Taxes on the processing fee, the fee fee and the other fee: $3.95
TOTAL: $89.03
One-week delivery time; deliveries attempted when I'm not available; package then held at the UPS depot, which is 39 km (24 miles) away, and has limited hours of operation.
Too add insult to injury, I (as suggested by the UPS web site) attempted to save the "fee fee", the "disbursement fee" and the subsequent taxes by phoning UPS 5 days prior to the delivery date and providing them my credit card number. They took my number, and said that yes, I would not have to pay the extraneous fees. However, when I phoned this morning to confirm that the fees had been billed to my credit card, I was told that "no credit card was on file", and that a COD sticker had been attached to the package.
There's a $60 difference between UPS and USPS – and for what? Things actually take LONGER to arrive with UPS, and I have to re-arrange my day to be at home and awake when the truck shows up.
This also means that I have to place very large orders (i.e. well into the hundreds of dollars) in order to make things remotely economical. In my above example, after all costs are factored in, my $90 USD C3 flashlight came out to $184 CAD, or just a little over double the "sticker price". Purchasing one $40 USD item by itself would cost me $125 CAD – that's over 3 times the sticker price!
Very, very frustrating!
<insert deep breath here>
Well, I certainly feel better now that that's off of my chest!
U.S. retailers could capture a lot of business from Canada if they could just figure out a less-costly way of shipping. If I'm not mistaken, USPS Global Express Mail offers a delivery confirmation service, and is priced competitively with UPS.
Avro
Whenever I wish to purchase something from the States, I always ask if the retailer is willing to ship via Air Mail (US Postal Service), explaining that a) UPS is a lot more expensive than it looks, and b) since I work shift work, I'm rarely available to accept packages at the door. I'm invariably told that they either won't ship USPS, no matter what, or that they will ship USPS, but with no guarantee of delivery (if I agree to that condition, I might as well burn my money).
So, that leaves me with one option: UPS.
Well, the brown truck arrived today (one day late) with my flashlights, and as usual, I had to pay an outrageous amount of money to get them to hand over my package.
What follows is a comparison between shipping via Air Mail, and UPS. Unless stated otherwise, all prices are in Canadian dollars ($CAD). $100 CAD is about $63 USD or £44.
I ordered just under $500 (USD) worth of merchandise, which equates to $763.61 CAD. When bringing anything into the country (regardless of shipping method), one must pay retail taxes and a "processing fee". Taxes are 15% of the merchandise value, so $114.54 in this case. The Post Office charges $5.00 to process the package. "Processing" involves looking at the value indicated on the outside of the box, converting it to Canadian funds and calculating the tax.
USPS Air Mail -
Shipping cost: $24.66
Processing fee: $5.00
TOTAL: $29.66
4-7 day delivery time; held at the "Postal Outlet" 1 block away for me to pick up at my convenience.
United Parcel Service - http://www.ups.com/canada/using/software/currentrates/engcustoms_rates.html
Shipping cost: $28.63
Processing fee: $46.95
Fee for collecting the above fee at my door: $4.00
Fee for advancing the taxes on my behalf: $5.50
Taxes on the processing fee, the fee fee and the other fee: $3.95
TOTAL: $89.03
One-week delivery time; deliveries attempted when I'm not available; package then held at the UPS depot, which is 39 km (24 miles) away, and has limited hours of operation.
Too add insult to injury, I (as suggested by the UPS web site) attempted to save the "fee fee", the "disbursement fee" and the subsequent taxes by phoning UPS 5 days prior to the delivery date and providing them my credit card number. They took my number, and said that yes, I would not have to pay the extraneous fees. However, when I phoned this morning to confirm that the fees had been billed to my credit card, I was told that "no credit card was on file", and that a COD sticker had been attached to the package.
There's a $60 difference between UPS and USPS – and for what? Things actually take LONGER to arrive with UPS, and I have to re-arrange my day to be at home and awake when the truck shows up.
This also means that I have to place very large orders (i.e. well into the hundreds of dollars) in order to make things remotely economical. In my above example, after all costs are factored in, my $90 USD C3 flashlight came out to $184 CAD, or just a little over double the "sticker price". Purchasing one $40 USD item by itself would cost me $125 CAD – that's over 3 times the sticker price!
Very, very frustrating!
<insert deep breath here>
Well, I certainly feel better now that that's off of my chest!
U.S. retailers could capture a lot of business from Canada if they could just figure out a less-costly way of shipping. If I'm not mistaken, USPS Global Express Mail offers a delivery confirmation service, and is priced competitively with UPS.
Avro
