This topic was part of a very long thread in MacCanada about 1 year ago. For the most part, the main points have been covered again here. My comments follow the form of short answer/long answer.
1) Ground shipments are bad, Air shipments are good. USPS is the only reasonable ground option. Canada post charges a $5 brokerage fee, which is reasonable considering a real customs broker charges at least $30, even if he is under contract to you or your company. UPS uses various brokers (related to whatever airport the box lands at) and the charge for brokerage reflects that. Any Air option will generally use the carrier's broker. Considering that Air shipment with brokerage is often the same as a brokerage fee alone, use Air whenever reasonable and possible. This includes UPS. For the most part, the air shipment broker is located somewhere in the US rather than Canada. This simply reflects the processes that have been created to deal with the massive volume of stuff moving back and forth (1/2 Trillion dollars worth a year). What this means is that (for example) FedEx will ship your parcel from the seller to perhaps Chicago then on to Canada; the package is pre-cleared through customs when it arrives and just goes on it's way to you right away. If you track your parcel you may find that it was loaded on a truck or plane to you in hours after crossing the border. This is much quicker than dealing with the large volume of stuff at the Canadian border (for example, Hamilton), it will sit in a bonded customs warehouse in Canada for at least 1 day and often more, along with every other box/truck/container/boxcar coming across. Another problem with clearing in Canada is that most bonded warehouses are located in southern Ontario. For example, If you buy from Denver, it will be shipped to Ontario, then to you in Edmonton (if that's where you live). 2) Brokerage is inevitable. Live with it and work with it. Because of the GST, every package must be brokered regardless of whether it is Duty Free or a Tariff item. Technically speaking, anything manufactured in USA or Mexico is duty free. With regard to computers, all software and most hardware is duty free from virtually any nation. In practise, Revenue Canada has generally considered anything bought at retail in the US as an item made in USA, even though this is not technically correct. This saves you money as most products on US store shelves are not US made and therefore subject to duty. 3) GST is good. A major sore with Canadians, the GST is despised nearly universally. However, most people do not realize that the GST at 7% replaced a longstanding tariff (like, 75 years) that was applied on the wholesale price of all manufactured goods. For the purpose of importing (ie you can't buy a haircut online in Chicago and have it delivered in a box), everything that GST applies to today was subject to the wholesale tax (it was called Federal Sales Tax) or duties in the past. The FST ranged in rate, but at no time was less than 12%. To a large extent, duties applied at the border before free trade were meant to recover the FST that only applied to items manufactured or sold (at retail) in Canada. Without going into a long explanation, I can assure you that prices in Canada, including GST, are significantly cheaper than they would be (and were) with FST. Now, whether these taxes, as FST or GST, is fair or necessary at all is another topic altogether. 4) WTC is not an issue. I buy, send, and travel between Canada and the US a lot. As a matter of fact, I just crossed the border twice in the last 6 days. I also have a lot of stuff shipped to me, whether by US retailers or private individuals. I shipped a large package (a computer and monitor) on Monday, Se 10. It arrived on time the following Thursday, 2 days after WTC. I suspect that if you have problems with shipping times, it is either unrelated, will go away or already has, or the people you dealt with are creating their own special but unnecessary havoc. If you experience delays I suggest you change something as most businesses are back to normal. (This AM a congressional hearing reported that even with Level 1 Security, which is still in place, average clearing time and volume is at preWTC levels). My experience confirms this; I was given much more scrutiny including a full vehicle search but it took about the same time as a normal US crossing. The crossing into Canada was typical, which is to say it's never the same twice. 5) Deal with Canada-friendly companies. There is no reason why a US firm cannot get a GST number and collect the tax directly. If this is done, your package DOES NOT NEED TO BE BROKERED BY ANYONE. The computer industry seems universally indifferent to this approach; magazine publishers and clothing merchants (Cabellas, Land's End, etc) are typically on the ball. Again, without going into a lot of detail, I can assure you that there are no specific financial penalties to doing this; Revenue Canada compensates firms (Canadian or foreign) for the hassle by allowing them to keep a portion of GST collected to offset administration costs. -- Mac Canada is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Shop Canadian, visit Mantek Services <http://www.mantek.mb.ca> Low Prices That Will Keep YOU and Your MAC Smiling Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Mac Canada info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-can.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-canada%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
