Re: [NTLK] About FS EBay PayPal and Shipping

On 12/19/2006 8:33:00 AM, Mark Ross (markr13@verizon.net) wrote:
> UPS has its own agents in each country and guarantees
> time certain delivery along with $100 of insurance at no extra cost.
> You get what you pay for.

And with UPS you pay for what they think they can get away with.

When importing into Canada, UPS acts as the broker. For this you have
to pay for the brokerage, a fee for collecting the duties, GST on
the brokerage, GST on the collection service, applicable duties, and
GST on the item and the applicable duties.

UPS does not have a very good record in knowing what the duty rates
are, so a lot of things that are covered as duty free under NAFTA
(computers, cameras, calculators...) are assessed a nominal duty rate
(typically in the 10-15% range) when they are supposed to be duty
free. Their brokerage rate is also not cheap, it has come down to
about $17.50 per shipment because people were bitching a lot, and
that is on small cheap packages.

A typical bill from UPS will typically be 50-90% of the value of the parcel.

UPS also ships all of their Canadian shipments through a single port
in Winnipeg. Parcels can sit there for days to weeks in a brokerage
hold. There is no such thing as overnight even if you paid extra and
it just has to get there.

Going through USPS and Canada Post, the bill is $5 plus applicable
duties and GST. The big difference is that Canada Customs and Excise
(or whatever their handle is this week) does the duty class lookup
and you get a very fair duty rate. Nothing gets lost, and it comes in
about the same time as UPS.

One reason that companies use UPS is that they come and pick up,
whereas you have to take USPS shipments to the post office. This
makes it less expensive for the shipping company. Also the shipping
costs are not on the package so it makes it easy for the shipping
company to take an extra couple of ounces.

When I order things from the US, I state in my order that I will not
accept parcels via UPS. They are too expensive. The parcels are
returned. This makes it more expensive for the shipper.

Andrei

-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/