We only started selling on eBay in February 2003. Our sales started soaring and were right on target with our projections with 85% of my sales, US bound. With an exchange rate of 1.55 I was enjoying my new business venture.
Then the war in Iraq began and the US buyers went away, even retracting their bids in some cases. Fortunately my fellow Canadians started picking up the slack telling me that they were tired of the brokerage fees being charged by UPS, Fedex and the rest when purchasing from US companies through eBay.
However along with that change came our strengthening dollar and changes to how Canada Post (our carrier of choice) calculated our shipping charges.
From nowhere I was facing another crisis thanks to Canada Post. In my 3rd month of business, week number 1 I shipped a 6 kg guitar to someone in Colorado. That customer paid me $35 for shipping and my Canada Post bill reflected a $40 Canadian charge. Two weeks later, I ship an identical guitar (different colour) to that same customer in the same state weighing the same 6 kg however it is now now billed at 30 kg (cubic weight)with my Canada Post charge for the 2nd guitar at $189.
This is not from the Purolator arm of Canada Post, this was Express Post that took 10 days to get the instrument to my customer. An increase of $149 in 2 weeks without notice.
What was alarming was between the time of my first shipment of that guitar and getting the Canada Post bill with the cubic weight charge for the 2nd shipment, I had shipped out almost 40 instruments that were all re-assessed at the cubic weight over the actual weight.
To this day, I have over $1,000 in charges I dispute with Canada Post that I am refusing to pay due to their dramatic change in calculating the weight of goods I ship.
The US situation over Iraq and their boycotting of Canadian business no longer has any significant effect on our sales however the US economy and the uncertainties of their future and their finances is clearly affecting the buying habits of alot of Americans.
I know that we still list our goods in US funds, waiting for the day to return to get back the high percentage of US customers we began with but we remain greatful for our Canadian customers who came out of the woodwork at a time we were evaluating whether to keep this eBay business going or not.
I just wish our Canadian dollar would drop a few points so I can make some money for a change instead of giving it all to eBay, PayPal and Canada Post.
I noted someone else in this forum talking about the Expedited service with Canada Post. I was told (and sold the bill of goods) that it would be less expensive than Express Post angoods would clear US customs faster than Ground Parcel Post with delivery in a little more than 5 business days.
So far I have used it about 10 times and 7 of the shipments took over 4 weeks to arrive at the customers. Surprising is I sent 2 violins in 2 seperate packages to the same US customer on the same day using Expedited Parcel Service. One violin arrived in 10 days and the second arrived just over 5 weeks. Where in the world did that 2nd violin travel to in those 5 weeks?
