No Longer Shipping to Canada

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in the B/S/T Forum. Since I'm not really selling anything in this thread, I thought it best to post it here. Anyway, this is just a quick public service announcement that I will no longer be shipping anything I sell to Canada. It's unfortuneate, that you Canadians will no longer be able to participate in my sale-items, but your Customs folks have gone over the line and I'm not willing to play ball.

Effective immedidately (I've been told by at least 3-different US Post Offices) Canada Customs will no longer accept packages in which the mailing label does not have all letters printed in UPPER-CASE. I won't debate the stupidity of this rule, but it is what it is. Traditionally, I will cut-paste the portion of the PayPal receipt and use it as the mailing label. Sometimes, it's all in lower case and other times it's in mixed case. At any rate, I'm not willing to spend my time to make the label correct and I'm certainly not going to hand write it. It's bad enough I need to do that to the Custom's Forms. This, coupled with the fact that I very rarely even brake even (let alone make a profit on my sales) has forced me to just cease any shipments to Canada.

I understand your decision, TIN. As a side point, though, U.S. postal regulations are the same; all caps, no punctuation, and even left margins. We apparently don't get too strict about it, At least we're not too strict domestically; I don't know if we're strict about international mail.

<font color="red">Notice: The following link is a PDF file.</font>
Postal regulations for addressing mail

All the PO representatives told me they could care less about how the item is addressed for domestic and other foreign mail. It's only Canada that will enforce this rule.

I do know that international addresses usually require the country to be listed on the very bottom line all by itself, in all caps.

But this new (in)tolerance/enforcement level of what is apparently a long-standing rule, plus the extreme delays some people experienced on my last bunch of Canadian mailings due to their customs department, has me reluctant to ship foreign again and I am seriously considering doing the same thing as TIN.

That was a very educational page; I added it to my Favourites subdirectory for future reference. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/happy14.gif

I'm not sure of the details, but there's (edit: or was?) apparently a simmering labour dispute within the ranks of the civil servants working for the Canadian Government. I think there's a kind of work-to-rule thing going on and they're doing things to kind of slow things up for everyone. I just lost a shipment that was sent to me by www.pocketlights.com as a result of this -- probably something within Canada Customs. Perhaps other Canadian flashaholics can shed some light on this. I hope this problem is resolved soon, since it's causing friction for everyone on both sides of the border.

I shudder when I have to do a sale outside of the U.S.! I had a light that I sold held up by Canadian customs in the past. The gent who bought it mildly insinuated that I might not have actually sent it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif He finally received it but not before Canadian customs dug into his wallet for a few extra bucks.

Another time I sold a knife to a gent in Denmark. This time, (after a couple of weeks of waiting), the buyer blatantly accused me of cheating him and not sending the knife. Shortly afterward he received notice that customs had it and again, they demanded duty money from him.

It's just scary when this happens as I take pride in my reputation concerning selling on the internet. Either of these incidents could have greatly tarnished it!

As a Canadian who does quite a bit of shopping outside the country, I'm accustomed to the long waits. It took 3 weeks for me to receive my hotlips from Hotbeam but I still gave him a cheer knowing full well it would show up at some point.
I suggest if you ship to Canada, tell the buyer to expect 3 week delivery time. That way you have some headroom before they start complaining.

Does anyone have problems receiving items from Canada? I'm likely to be selling some TWOH emitters in the near future and I'd hate to have any probs shipping out to the US.

Me mizu, first in line for your TWOH emitters /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I've got no problems shipping to canada. I do hate filling out customs forms and standing in line for 45 minutes though.

I ship a LOT of International items. The USPS does require the county to be written in all caps as the last line of the address - as Mr Bulk mentioned. The only exception to the country being the last line is Canada, where you can interchange the country or postal code.

Although they recommend the entire address be in caps, they don't mention it being required for successful delivery in any particular country. They should list Canada as an exception to this now I guess. Here's a clip from their page:
__________________________________________________
Destination Address

We recommend that you print your delivery addresses in all uppercase letters. If possible, addresses should have no more than five lines.

The full address should be typed or legibly written in English - using Roman letters and Arabic numeral - and should be placed lengthwise on one side of the item. An address in a foreign language is permitted if the names of the city, province, and country are also indicated in English.

The last line of the address block area must include only the complete country name (no abbreviations) written in uppercase letters. (Alternative format for Canada below.)

Foreign postal codes, if used, should be placed on the line above the destination country. Some countries prefer that the postal code follow the name, while others prefer that it precede the city or town name. The following shows the order of information for the destination address:

LINE 1: NAME OF ADDRESSEE
LINE 2: STREET ADDRESS OR POST OFFICE BOX NUMBER
LINE 3: CITY OR TOWN NAME, OTHER PRINCIPAL SUBDIVISION (ie, PROVINCE, STATE, COUNTY, ETC.) AND POSTAL CODE (IF KNOWN) (Note: in some countries, the postal code may precede the city or town name)
LINE 4: COUNTRY NAME (UPPERCASE LETTERS IN ENGLISH)

The following are examples of properly formatted delivery addresses:

MS JOYCE BROWNING
2045 ROYAL ROAD
LONDON WIP 6HQ
ENGLAND

MS JOYCE BROWNING
2045 ROYAL ROAD
06570 ST PAUL
FRANCE

For mail to Canada, the location of the country name and postal code are interchangeable: either one may be placed on the last line, with the other one placed after the city and provincial name.

The following are examples of destination addresses to Canada:

MS HELEN SAUNDERS
1010 CLEAR STREET
OTTAWA ON K1A 0B1
CANADA

MS HELEN SAUNDERS
1010 CLEAR STREET
OTTAWA ON CANADA
K1A 0B1

As a precaution, senders should place a card showing the names and addresses of the sender and addressee inside parcels. Items sent to general delivery must show the addressee's name and the endorsement "Poste Restante," which is the French term for "general delivery."
______________________________________________________

Here's a more detailed version of their "International Mail Manual."

The thing that bugs me is that you have to hand deliver a package that has a customs form to a postal clerk. If not for that fact, I think there would be a lot more dealers here shipping Internationally. Waiting in line for 20 minutes to ship an item I'm making less than $2 on makes me wonder what in the hell I'm doing sometimes. That's why I try to consolidate my International shipments and make the trip only once or twice a week.

I wish they could make that customs form an electronic process like the rest of their stuff. You'd think it would be to their advantage to have it all stored in the "digital world," rather than having stacks of those green papers lying around the PO for a month. If they let you print an electronic version of the label, they could guarantee legibility and also help the sender better categorize the included items (HS tariff number if applicable).

Wow, is it that crazy over on your side of the world?

I'm somewhere in the Asia Pacific, and I just shipped out 52 packages last couple of days. All they require here is that it has the little green form, a stamp/sticker saying "air mail", appropriate postage and that's it - I just pour the whole lot into the postbox and let them take care of it as it has always been done. Handing it to a clerk.. just doesn't make sense.

Chris, we do appreciate what you are doing for us international users and it would be a real shame to see it go. If it means paying a little more for international shipments I'd do it. I don't mind the one-week wait so you can consolidate everything. The UCLs make all the difference in the world after all (and I'm going to need some Borofloats after Christmas too).

Sorry to hear about your difficulties shipping up to here to the great white north (even though we finished out of the medals in the 2003 Bureaucracy Olympics).

On the other hand, I have ordered many, many books from the States and have rarely ever had trouble...

It appears that everything may be back to normal, if what I'm seeing is going to be the norm. Looking at the tracking on a Global Express Mail shipment to Vancouver, BC. Shipped it on the 15th, and it arrived in Canada on the afternoon of the 18th, went into Customs on the afternoon of the 19th, and cleard Customs on the morning of the 22nd. Pretty sure this one will be charged a fee and dutie. That's not bad at all for Canada. I didn't use upper case letters either, except for the country name.

oldgrandpajack