Shopping in the US for Canadians

[David]

I always say that the US is a shoppers paradise. A lot of stuff can be had for surprisingly less money then in Canada (or Europe or even China). But not every seller will ship to Canada and shipping and brokerage can be expensive.

This company can be a solution: https://www.crossborderpickups.ca/

I tried Cross Border out recently. I bought some 15W50 synthetic oil for my Lotus from Driven Racing Oil and had it shipped to the Cross Border Pick Up site in Niagara Falls. I could not find this oil in Canada and Driven will not ship here. Cross Border Pick Ups brought the oil to their Markham location for $37 Cdn. Not bad.

[LakeFever]

You can also ship to a ups location near the border and they will hold the package for you until you can pick it up. Theres a fee for this per day to hold and one to process but both are pretty reasonable. I shipped a lot of stuff over the US/Can border in both directions. Its one extra page to fill out for customs and thats it. The main issue most shipping south of the border you can add high ins value for protection at minimal cost and zero hassles. When shipping over the border you cant do this because the customs brokerage bases off the ins listed value if its over the reported sale value. Its a scam really but they have us by the nutz on this. Best way to ship across the border is to list actual sale value for item and ins or less. Then its simply a matter of having the item description accurate and country of origin which for pretty much all of us here is USA made. Its also usually easiest to ship via USPS / Canadapost because they are federal agencies and will clear customs for you and typically much lower rates than fedex or ups charges. The custom clearing service charge ups and fedex charge is a total rip off. The border taxes if any are typically quite low. Ive done a lot of europe/domestic shipping too. Same deal. The middle east can be harder due to language problems and lack of known agencies and paperwork. Harder
for our side to process

[David]

I have used the postal service to avoid the crazy brokerage charges from Fed Ex and UPS.

Once last summer it did not go well for me. Our tankless water heater needed repair and the parts locally were $1900 Cdn and 9 week lead time. I got the parts mailed to me for less than $500 Cdn, and the parts were in stock. The mail took 6 weeks. For the convenience of hot water I should have used Fed Ex to Niagara Falls.