United States de-minimus is now 40 times higher than Canada

[winepress780]

Effective Mar 10, 2016 Americans can now import $800 U.S. duty and tax free while Canadians are saddled with a puny $20 CDN limit. Way to go Canada! It is a better time now for Canadian sellers selling bigger ticket items to Americas. As for Canadian buyers forget it we are stuck in the 1980's. It's great that this government is too dumb to realize or care that most items over $20 CDN go scott-free. Heck I've imported packages worth hundreds and one almost $1000 from Europe and didn't get dinged with anything.

CBSA officers are, for the most part, ignorant of Canadian tariffs and customs and routinely slap blatantly incorrect HS codes on packages if they decide to assess a package for duty/taxes. So I will continue to fill out CBSA refund forms and send them proof that they don't have a clue what they are doing and I will continue to get my refund cheques in the mail. But what a waste of tax payer money. It would be nice if the Canadian threshold was higher especially when using a courier service and it is why I only potentially use a courier service if I am importing a higher priced item.

So better times for Canadian sellers, but the same old dark ages for Canadian buyers.

[winepress780]

I think you might of used DHL Global? DHL Global passes off packages to Canada Post. DHL Express provides end-to-end delivery.

The de-minimus has not been adjusted for inflation since 1985 so it is actually going down every year. Just calculating for inflation alone it should be at least $40 by now. At $20 it might as well be zero because the shipping cost of delivering an item less than $20 outweighs delivering it. The Retail Council of Canada is happy with the 2016 budget which has seen no change to the value. Instead of "subsidizing" a dying and paranoid retail industry (that mostly provides minimum wage jobs) by restricting free trade, why not open it up to competition? Competition is the only thing that is going to drive prices down. Canadians are naive to think that any savings retail would make would be passed onto consumers and prices would be lower. Sitting behind these companies are fat cats whose primary objective is to line their bank accounts. This is a great feature of capitalism; fat cats are needed because they provide jobs. However, there must be enough fat cats around after the same game so they claw at each other and keep each other in line.

Retail is not going to die. There will always be retail jobs because a lot of stuff simply can't be imported or is restricted or is cost prohibitive. A lot of goods and resources are necessarily highly regulated and rightfully so like food, dangerous goods etc... Other items are just too big or weighty to be worthwhile to import. Even if retail was to crash massively it would only be a part of it and someone else will come in and capitalize on the market and provide jobs. Instead of trying protect a dying retail segment open it up to competition as the current system isn't working anyway. Get rid of the excuse that things need to be double the price here simply because we are Canadian and have a stamp on our shirts that read "Tax me I'm Canadian and love higher prices." Instead of fearing Americans taking over Canada why not join them and invite some of their fat cats up here? Fight manufacturers on country prices that see Canada as a place just to charge higher prices. Eliminate or at least significantly reduce burdensome duty like 18% on a lot of clothes and shoes. This 18% duty amount combined with the $20 de-minimus make Canada one of the worst places in the world to import these types of goods.

And finally force couriers to provide options to customers to self-clear packages and make this process simple and accessible. It the against the law for couriers who participate in the low value shipment program to deny customers the right to clear their own shipments. If the customs system was simplified, and the de-minimus was higher, and burdensome duty was lowered, it just might provide Canadians with better prices and access to good abroad. Forget taxes, just considering duty alone, there is no justification for the United States to have de-minimus that is 40 times than ours. I wouldn't mind at least seeing a split of this and having two values, one for taxes and the other for duty like the European Union does. Either have two values or significantly reduce duty and simplify the customs regime.

[marnotom!]

At least when I go off the rails, I stay more or less on topic.  

[bcwet]

I totally agree with you Pierre. I remember when NAFTA first came in our jobs ran over the border. Alot of people were scared Canada would lose its individuality and look what happened Canadian stores either closed or bought by a US parent. Walmart is king. The American fast food chains have taken over. They even own Tim Horton's. With the exchange rate I don't know why anyone would want to buy from over the border anymore. Where we can I think we should buy Canadian. I ordered a couple of small items from China a phone case and some screen protectors it's been over 2 months they never came I reordered from a Canadian with the exchange rate it maybe cost me a few dollars more but I got the items within a week. One thing that ticks me off is Canadian sellers selling in US funds. I hope the government keeps it low our sellers have to compete with a country 10xs our size with low shipping rates already.

[momcqueen]

I too agree with Pierre. He said it best. I do not lightly make decision to spend money outside Canada's borders. Money spent outside the country is lost to the country. It's gone. 

[momcqueen]

One thing that ticks me off is Canadian sellers selling in US funds.

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Hear hear. You and millions of other Canadian buyers. As a seller here, I list in CAD only and nothing could convince me to do otherwise. You will be pleased to know that ebay.ca is going CAD only in the near future. Until now, it has been the only ebay site in the world that allows listing in dual currencies but this will stop. 

[lady.stark]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

I too agree with Pierre. He said it best. I do not lightly make decision to spend money outside Canada's borders. Money spent outside the country is lost to the country. It's gone. 

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In most instances, I totally agree. Except when it comes to collectibles. There is NOTHING made or sold in Canada regarding collectibles based on TV shows/movies. Or very, very few stores like maybe L'Imaginaire in Quebec. But generally speaking, those collectibles are made in the US by US companies (like Creation Entertainment).

Not to mention the props and wardrobe used in TV shows. You will rarely find those things in Canada.

[momcqueen]

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@lady.stark wrote:

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

I too agree with Pierre. He said it best. I do not lightly make decision to spend money outside Canada's borders. Money spent outside the country is lost to the country. It's gone. 

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In most instances, I totally agree. Except when it comes to collectibles. There is NOTHING made or sold in Canada regarding collectibles based on TV shows/movies. Or very, very few stores like maybe L'Imaginaire in Quebec. But generally speaking, those collectibles are made in the US by US companies (like Creation Entertainment).

Not to mention the props and wardrobe used in TV shows. You will rarely find those things in Canada.

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Really? Even with all the stuff that's shot in Canada? Winnipeg has a vibrant film/television scene; it seems like this would be an untapped resource. Interesting. 

[marnotom!]

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@bcwet wrote:

One thing that ticks me off is Canadian sellers selling in US funds. I hope the government keeps it low our sellers have to compete with a country 10xs our size with low shipping rates already.

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And now Canadian eBay sellers will have to list exclusively in Canadian dollars and possibly lose sales from non-Canadians who can't or won't make the effort to read currency conversion information.

I don't see why Canadian sellers can't have the choice to list in US dollars or Canadian dollars on the Canadian site and judge what works best for them.

[winepress780]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

I too agree with Pierre. He said it best. I do not lightly make decision to spend money outside Canada's borders. Money spent outside the country is lost to the country. It's gone. 

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I say they can adapt and embrace the new age of online international consumerism or die. Canadian retail and every company in the supply chain up to retail isn't a charity that I have to support. Somewhere along the line someone is raking in huge profits on some things. Sure some smaller outlets are great to support, but they are being eaten up by larger multinational companies. It's an easier choice when items are half the price abroad and I'll keep the extra money in my pocket. I'll weigh the risks of warranty, service, quality, cost and reputation and I'll make a decision.

If a Canadian company wants my business then they can offer the quality and reasonable price I expect. I'll eat a 25% price difference but I'm not going to pay double or even 50% of the price for it especially on higher priced items that are easily importable. There are some great Canadian companies and do buy from them and they make their stuff in house. Their prices are reasonable and the quality is excellent and they have my business. However, most stuff is made in China or somewhere else these days anyway so to "buy Canadian" isn't all it is cracked up to be.

Not all money spent abroad is lost because if that was the case we should not be importing anything into the country. At the very least it gives business to Canada Post and courier companies. Our government's own tariff system is at least partly responsible for some of the price discrepancies with high tariffs on some things. Companies need to adapt if they want to survive because online shopping is increasing and it won't go away unless prices and selection are more reasonable here.

[winepress780]

Ha well can we agree that at least the third last sentence was on topic 🙂

[femmefan1946]

Buying Canadian can come down to agreeing with Henry Ford, that anti-semitic **bleep**.

He paid his assembly line workers enough that they could buy the cars they made. And a consumer economy was born.

He later became a heavy handed union-buster because: **bleep**.

When we buy Canadian (even goods made offshore) in theory that money stays in Canada, supporting our infrastructure and social security net.

When we import goods, we are not supporting our own jobs and pensions.

[winepress780]

I think I would agree with you in principal. However there comes a tipping at which price differences become ridiculous and the public armed with knowledge and access are going to make different choices. I would love if Canadian companies would setup massive online distribution centres and become world renown and get sales from all over. What's stopping them? Government policies, lack of resources, vision etc...? I know someone is going to stone me here but maybe we need a visionary someone like Kim DotCom that can disrupt things. In his words "Stop this madness...let's all be friends!" Or maybe not I'm not sure if he's straight up with everything but you have to hand it to him for thinking differently 🙂

[lady.stark]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

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@lady.stark wrote:

Not to mention the props and wardrobe used in TV shows. You will rarely find those things in Canada.

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Really? Even with all the stuff that's shot in Canada? Winnipeg has a vibrant film/television scene; it seems like this would be an untapped resource. Interesting. 

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It might seem surprising, but it's true. Most items from shows shot in Canada are sold by USA sellers who are buying the whole lot (or at least a large part of it). I would give some examples, but I do not know if I can name some sellers here... There is one in Canada that I know of (and I bought from him in the past), but he's the exception.

And then there's myself, who is Canadian, but it's only because I am selling some of my own stuff that I bought first from US sellers.

[momcqueen]

Oh, I see. So you'd have to walk into the place with a flat-bed and take it all. I was surprised (but not doubtful of what you said) partly because I remember some publicity around one big open-to-the-public sale that happened in Winnipeg about 10 years ago, after some bigger budget films wrapped shooting on location here. It was wardrobe and sets so I assumed this happened all the time, just that I don't know about it.

[lady.stark]

If you are a collector, you can also go to these sales. You are right, they usually are open to the public. But you should go very early, because you can bet the big $ companies will be there and snatch all the good stuff. I wish there were some sales like that where I reside, but I never heard of one. Most sales that I know of are in British Columbia (the other side of the country), since many shows are shot there (for instance, The X-Files, Arrow, etc.).