And when you say charge her, for those that don’t ship to Canada by UPS this charge is not small. They hire the broker, they handle the shipment. We have often had Duty, Fees and Taxes, exceed the charge for our product. This creates one pixxed off customer.
The OP @LR72 traveled the correct path on this one.
We still ship to Canada on our own website but only USPS > to > Canada Post and we keep it under $40, so far we have not “touched the stove.”
When I was last foolish enough to use UPS ground, the customs clearance charge was $35 plus the Duty and taxes.
It really is a killer.
My Ebay buyers in Canada who I ship to with Ebay International Shipping pay substantially less than a UPS Ground shipment will cost. Which is why I offer International Shipping only on Ebay.
Yup, live and learn. In all these years I’ve only sent USPS to Canada, so I wasn’t aware of their brokerage fees. I’ve notified my customer in case she’s not aware and asked her to let me know if they assess them.
If so, I’ll refund her the amount (calculator shows it’ll be around $70 US) - fortunately there’s enough profit built into the order that I can cover it without issue and it’s not too expensive of a lesson learned.
Bumping this back up with an update - on this thread that ended up not being about email addresses at all!
As you all predicted, UPS did hit the shipment with a $98!!! brokerage fee on top of the Duty fees. I think the total was like $188 - insanity. I fully expected my customer to kick it back to me…but the next time I looked it was delivered, so she must have just paid it.
Lesson learned - thank you all for your input. First time shipping something large to CA using UPS, and it will be my last!