Has any of our Canadian readers ever shipped anything to the U.S.? I'm curious about postage rates...

There's an auction on Ebay (260031071433) that has the front fender, number plate, headlight, hand guards, and front blinkers for a very reasonable $40. I know someone that could use these parts (no, not me, not yet). The guy (girl?) wants $55 for shipping to the U.S.! That seems crazy to me for some relatively small, certainly light parts...does it really cost that much? Just wondering...

 

Seems high to me but it depends on the carrier and the service. Yes, FedEx Overnight from Canada to USA is going to cost a lot, but USPS mail will be cheap by comparison. So the answer is "it depends" on several factors. Try going to the usps web site and calculating the postage, estimating the box size and weight. Do the same for other carriers that you might be interested in also, such as UPS and you can get a good idea of what the shipping should cost.

 

Yes it is high to ship to the US from Canada but it does depend on how it is being shiped and declared. Also most people do not realize that 85% of all online sellers make as much as 200% and more on the shipping.
Be aware. low sell prices are normally offset by the money they make on the shipping.

 

It shouldnt cost even close to that to ship from Canada. Maybe 25-30 bucks. You see this in a Lot of ebay ad's, people sell stuff cheap and then try to make up for it on the shipping charges. Now maybe if there doing Air freight.


LV

 

http://www.canadapost.ca/personal/to...asp?sblid=rate

 

Jason,

Thanks for the link to Canadian postage. I measured my fender to estimate the package size that would be required. I filled in all the postage info, and surprisingly discovered that the postage would be about $40 to send it to New Mexico (9 day service), $57 if I wanted 5 day service, and $210 for next day service.

You learn something new every day. There I going assuming that ebay'r was trying to rip the buyer off, and I discover I'm a Dumas...

 

Canada Post has some very odd rates... Sometimes you get those outrageous rates like that, with long packages, or heavy...
Try putting in some different parameters (size/weight) and you'll see some very different postage rates. It's very strange. I think that is abnormally high. I sell lots of things on eBay. I even shipped a keyboard to Australia for under $40. Most things I send to the US for $15 or $20.

 

as notstock said sometimes on ebay they reduce the price of the item so they pay less commision to ebay once the item is sold, then recover the money by jacking up the freight. I bought a torch off ebay for 1c .... but the freight was $11.99.

Cheers

Garry

 

Canada Post has some strange ways to figure out shipping costs.

Be careful how you do the packaging, because the size factors in significantly ... sometimes even more than the weight.

I shipped a pipe that weighed just under 2 pounds. I boxed it up with some extra padding material, and Canada Post wanted almost $60 to send it. I repackaged it into a slightly smaller box and the cost went down to less than $20.

(I've heard lots of other strange things about how Canada Post operates, so none of this surprises me.)