Thread: Global Shipping, for your amusement.

Originally Posted by Willisf

Our Timmies isn't that slow..... Well maybe it is.
We actually have 2 of them now...... Hahahaha
The Big metropolis we are now......

I agree ....nothing wrong with cabbage rolls and perogies.

Being a west coast raised guy, Timmies just won't cut it for me, it's Starbucks for me. Now the cabbage rolls and perigees in the old country are pretty tasty for sure. I might roll out that way some day, but Seattle has a September meet, it's not too far for you to drive. Think of the adventure!

September....when?

I'm not a big coffee drinker. When I moved up here 11+ years ago.... I couldn't believe my eyes on the line up at Timmies. And it didn't matter the time of day either. Coffee Crazy Nutty people.....lol

Originally Posted by RezDog

GSP is a percentage based system, based on the the sale price. They know when there are actually costs involved on their end and then the percentage goes up. So if you examine the percentage after $200 for example, it is higher, because that is when the GST comes into play. They pay it on our behalf and charge us extra for that. Most of the cost is a brokerage fee. If they just send it through and customs catches an applicable tax, they assess a fee and add the tax as well. The penalties from customs is about 1/3 of GSP brokerage fees. GSP's brokerage fees are about 1/2 of what UPS charges. They are all bandits for what charge, some are worse than others. It is a sad racket. Most shippers think all that money goes to pay the Canadian Government. It goes almost exclusively into the pockets of the shipping company.

What you say is a more detailed explanation of what I assumed they would claim to be doing, despite there being no duty or taxes and therefore no brokerage needed on small items under $200, they just pass the border as any other piece of mail. Do you think a foreign company can collect and pay GST? I don't, what is their GST number? I'm just guessing.
What I wanted to point out was the shipping costs being much more (about triple) for the identical item that costs less.

Their shipping costs are really steep, and really slow. They make Canada Post look blindingly fast. If we want to compare the combined CP and USPS system for a moment and compare that to whatever GPS does, it will take a similar parcel form a similar location in the US an extra ten days to get to me at more than double the cost. I don't understand the how and why of it. The shipping costs are often not all the same either for similar items, before the silly brokerage fees. For most of what we are buying it is like saying I will charge you 26% (just a number I have not calculated it) to fill out the customs declaration form. I will then send your package to my buddy in Toronto, who has a small courier company and he will send it to his office in the US, where it will get mailed to you via USPS. For that little exchange we will charge triple what the postal system will do. The whole business plan makes no sense to me. My solution is to not buy from people using the GSP. If I see an item with GSP what it tells me is that they are trying to say they don't want to ship that item out of the US, but if you really want it, we have an outrageous levy against it.

And I do think that if GST were applicable they would just pay it to CBS, similar to if when you travel to the US you pay GST when applicable on declared items. For big ticket items you can fill out the paper work in advance. 2008 and 2009 I had a friend who was importing RV's into Canada. He would have all his paper work filed before he left Canada to go pick it up. Apparently it is not much paperwork and pretty simple to do, he liked it to filling out a declaration form, similar to the ones we fill out when we are coming home from the US.

I've seen some UPS brokerage costs being insane.
One gal ordered something from the USA and it cost her $20 to purchase plus shipping.
UPS charged her $42.00 brokerage plus the...... So she ended up paying over $45 in addition to what she paid the company she bought the item from.
Needless to say....she refused it..... A few weeks later she got the package sent back to her and the fees were waived by UPS.
The brokerage fees, not the taxes is what is killing a good deal from other countries. UPS has some of the highest brokerage fees around.
They sometimes assess the value of something according to their own "guidelines"....... Not a fair practice.

I picked up a catalogue from restoration hardware in Vancouver. They had a great chandelier in it. It was a little pricey, but I thought it would go well with my kitchen renovation. When it arrived, it had been shipped from the US by UPS. The brokerage fees were equal to the value of the chandelier, plus the GST. It arrived and they had put all the charges through on my visa and I was in a tough spot. Short answer, always ready the fine print.

Originally Posted by RezDog

I picked up a catalogue from restoration hardware in Vancouver. They had a great chandelier in it. It was a little pricey, but I thought it would go well with my kitchen renovation. When it arrived, it had been shipped from the US by UPS. The brokerage fees were equal to the value of the chandelier, plus the GST. It arrived and they had put all the charges through on my visa and I was in a tough spot. Short answer, always ready the fine print.

I bet you had a few choice words to say also!

It is a beautiful light fixture but the end price still makes me raise a brow. I can laugh about it now, but yes there was some choice words. NEVER ship UPS. I had a second bad experience with them that was shipped that way not to my knowledge. They are just a dirty company as far as I can see.

LOL, they make GSP look inviting!