USPS shipping to Canada

[Guest]

Folks, there's been a few posts and some chat recently about challenges and concerns with shipping bird parts from USA to CAN. I discovered last week that I could mail a big box of flairbird front seat foams from Clearwater, MN, USA to Oakville, Ontario, CAN using USPS International Priority mail delivery. The box measured 22"x20"x16", weighed 9 lbs and cost just $38 which included $240 of insurance. I mailed it Monday of this week and it arrived yesterday (Thursday) of the same week. No questions, no customs, no excise tax! I did the whole thing from my computer with USPS.com Click-n-Ship Sunday nighte and the mail carrier picked the box up at my house Monday morning at 9am. How much easier could that get?

Apparently the USA post office and the CAN post office have a smooth interface. Thought you all would like to know.

I have in the past also used USPS International Priority to countries in Europe as well and have had excellent results.

[Howard Prout]

The good news about using USPS to send things from the USA to Canada is that there is no brokerage fee. However the receipient may have to pay sales taxes on the Canadian value of the shipment. The couriers charge a brokerage fee (of the order of $50) to clear items through Canada Customs on top of the sales taxes even though there are no import duties. The bad news is that it can take a long time for shipments to work their way through the system. Dave Dare sent me a small part in a bubble envelope via USPS that took 2 1/2 weeks to get delivered. I can drive to Dave's house in less than four hours! For those living close to the border, the quickest and cheapest alternative is to have shipments sent to a US address, pick them up and take them across the border yourself. The key is to have a US address that you can have things sent to.