I see Dave Shea has been explaining why he doesn’t typically order goods online; I’ve ordered lots of goods online and had mixed experiences. I usually only buy online if 1) I can’t find what I’m looking for locally, or 2) it’s substantially cheaper than buying locally. I also make sure of warranty implications for anything I buy that might need one (e.g., my Tungsten).
I tend to give the nod to Canadian retailers because of the hassles Dave talks about and also because I like to support local or semi-local small businesses (although I have bought enough at Amazon that the regular “you might be interested in” emails give a remarkably consonant view into my current interests). I buy books at Amazon.com if I’m not in a hurry to get them and if they’re cheaper, including shipping, than buying the same books locally. This is often the case right now since books have the price printed on the back, and the Canadian dollar is currently worth quite a lot more compared to the US dollar than when lots of the books were printed.
Although I haven’t had anything shipped by them for some time, I agree with Derek Miller, who advises avoiding UPS if at all possible; I’ve found UPS in the past to be very quick to charge double fees if two boxes in the same shipment are labelled with the total (they charge as if each box had the total value). What I do to try to get around that problem is to either call or email the place I’m ordering from if I think there’s a chance they might put things into more than one box, and discuss the issue with them. The result is that I haven’t had that particular problem for a few years now. Companies that don’t answer the phone or email don’t get my custom.
Recent experiences that I’ve had with ordering from outside Canada:
- books from a couple of small retailers in the US coming via Canada Post: no extra charges
- two baby slings hand-made by a small retailer in the US coming via Canada Post: no extra charges
- quite a few books from Amazon.de coming through Canada Post: charged GST and associated other fees about half the time
- books from Amazon.com coming via Canada Post: occasionally charged GST etc. If you request priority shipping, Amazon collects an Import Fees Deposit to cover the various charges (I guess to save time in delivery)
- buying a humidifier from Venta Airwasher: this is a longer story. I called up to order rather than using the website, to discuss the delivery issues. They charged me GST and when I said I found that odd since they’re a US store, they assured me everything would be fine. And to call back and let them know if it wasn’t. Sure enough, the humidifier (great humidifier, BTW) showed up with no extra charges and I was pleasantly surprised. Until the bill from Fedex arrived in the mail a week later. I called the company, complained, they said they’d take care of it, I called Fedex to tell them what was happening, didn’t pay the bill, and haven’t heard anything in the year since, so I assume Venta did take care of it.
In the unexpected-but-in-the-end-ok category: I ordered a DVD from BBC Canada, and was charged the normal GST etc. The problem here was that they shipped the DVD from the US, and Canada Post promptly charged me $12 for GST, duties, etc., despite the envelope having a “GST paid” stamp on it. I called BBC Canada to complain and they credited my credit card with the $12. I hope they got the money back from Revenue Canada; at least I didn’t have to pay.
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Why is it that Amazon.com will not ship any other products other than books.…Their prices are much cheaper even with the shippping added
I don’t know why Amazon has so many limits on what can be sent to Canada. Maybe some manufacturers won’t let them, so they can try to get more money out of us? Just a thought.
Hey there — great info!
I stumbled across your website because I found a DVD set I want that’s $300 at Amazon.ca and $150 at Amazon.com.
I have no clue how customs deals with stuff from Amazon.com but it certainly seems like it’s worth doing.
It looks like you’ve only had your stuff from them checked about 1/2 the time — I’ve also heard warnings about UPS. Does Amazon.com ever use them?
Overall has it been worth your while to use .com instead of.ca?
thanks again,
Davi
I believe Amazon always uses USPS/Canada Post, but I don’t use the express service so I don’t know what they use for that. Canada Post charges a $5 handling fee if they do charge you the GST and duties. So if you add up the extra shipping charge and the handling fee (bearing in mind that Amazon.ca will charge you the GST anyway), then you can see if it’s worth it even if you do pay the duties. If the stuff comes from the US then it should be covered under NAFTA, thus the duties will be minimal, in which case it’s probably worth getting the set from Amazon.com rather than Amazon.ca. It’s probably also worth checking other options though, just in case, such as Future Shop, or Chapters/Indigo, in case they’re cheaper again. Overall I typically use Amazon.com, but that’s also because they have a different selection to Amazon.ca and often the books I want are 24-hour order from .com but 4–6 weeks from .ca (no idea why). HTH.
I’m in the same position as David — Amazon.com has some exceptionally good DVD deals right now, and nothing in Canada comes close to matching. I came across this post while searching for information on what shipping methods Amazon.com ACTUALLY uses and whether or not I’ll get hit with a ridiculous brokerage fee. Remarkably, this post was just about all I found; people haven’t talked about it much, which I suppose is a good sign.
I heard recently (from a Canadian friend who happens to now work at Amazon.com in Seattle on their software) that the reason Amazon.ca is so separate from .com is because bookstores are a protected business in Canada. Here’s the (first google hit giving) details: In a cultural-protection effort, the federal government placed (in 1985) fairly strong limitations on the allowable level of foreign investment in bookstores operating in Canada.
This forces Amazon.ca to operate as something of a franchisee of .com, rather than a majority-owned subsidiary as you might expect. That’s why it’s appearance and features seem to lag a bit behind other Amazons, and why you have to create a separate user account for .ca, while the same account automatically works at both .com, .co.uk, and (probably) most others.
Still, this doesn’t quite explain why Amazon.com is not willing/able to ship things like toys and household goods to Canada, or why .ca has not expanded into those areas, either. It probably has something to do with the customs hassle and shipping costs making it not worthwhile.
thats strange that the prices would be significantly different for .ca and .com amazon sites given that they are the same company. A similar trend exist in europe where you will pay about 400 pounds for video games that cost $400 in the USA… evn though their currency is a lot stronger than ours
About buying from Amazon into Canada and why they are so tough…
Well, it’s definitely not to get more money out of Canucks, that is for sure. The truth is that as a U.S. business we find it very, very difficult to ship to Canada quite simply because not all of our products are made in the U.S. For example, when we ship a “Made in China” product to Canada, our customers have to pay the importation duties associated with Chinese products in the harmonization category under which the product falls. Most of our Canadian customers refused to pay this and we ultimately had to bear the burden…always eliminating any gross margin we realized as part of the sale.
Thus Amazon and most U.S. companies selling products made abroad will not ship to Canada — even though we love Canadians so much!
Cheers,
TA
I think that they put limitations on amazon.ca because they don’t want to take away the potential sales revenue from their US based stores. Lets face it people I know I wouldn’t be ordering from amazon.com if I knew I could be getting my electronics shipped from next door not cross country.
I have a book ready for publishing. I live in Canada. Are there any good reasons I should choose a Canadian publisher over a US based publisher?
Not directly related to the subject of your post, but a google search lead me here, so I figured I’d ask becuase I am at my wit’s end -
Where do you get your Venta cleaning solution and additive? The US distributor apparently does not ship to Canada anymore (I’m quite sure they used to), there is no Canadian distributor, and I am having a horrible time even finding Canadian retailers anymore! The last time I checked, a couple months ago, there were a handful of retailers in the Greater Toronto Area who carried the additive, but not the cleaning solution, and I can’t even find them anymore! My poor (and damn expensive) Airwasher is now sitting there, empty and off, desperately begging for a cleaning … there’s actually a little mold or something growing in it now between the fins, so I don’t even want to operate it until I can give it a proper cleaning in case the mold (or whatever it is) is ending up in the air
Any help or pointers would be GREATLY appreciated!
I wash everything that isn’t the motor in the dishwasher at the end of the season and when it looks like it needs it. Add in a bit of scrubbing between the “fins” while it’s still damp from the dishwasher and it usually comes out looking clean. I found using the cleaner didn’t make it any cleaner than the dishwasher when I tried both one time.
When I needed a new motor a few months back, I called the US distributor’s customer service and they sent it to me, so that’s an option. Also, while in Saskatchewan last winter, I noticed a Home Hardware store had a Venta Airwasher on the shelves, and it’s still in their catalogue, so that might be another option if you have one close to you.
Thanks so much! I never even thought to throw it all in the dishwasher! I will give that a try this week!
Thanks so much for the advice! The airwasher came out clean as could be, albeit with a couple of the drum discs a wee bit warped — Note to anyone else seeing this idea for the first time and thinking to try it — Turn off ‘heat dry’ (I think I might have, can’t recall, it’s was a while ago) and do not sit the drums on the little peg/post things that hold the plates up and such — take them out or put them down if you can, or if needed, take the drums off the handle/holder thing (be careful doing that though, I snapped two of the 8 holder pegs when I did it
) and put them in separately … other than that though it worked perfectly! And Home Hardware does indeed carry the additive … if your local store doesn’t have it in stock just ask and they can order it. Thanks Lauren!! 
I would like to know why we Canadians cannot get free shipping & handling costs as is offered to Americans? What happened to free Trade (NAFTA)? I find it quite irritating to want to buy a product(s) only to find out when ordering that shipping & handling costs equal 40% 0r more of the products I wish to purchase. Needless to say I won’t order any products that come with too high S & H costs. A pity because otherwise I would certainly shop more often with Amazon. Please respond if can in some way remedy this situation.
http://webuyitforyou.com will ship what you want to Canada.
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