international perfume shipping

[snoozyboots]

I wonder if anyone can offer me some advice. I purchased eau de cologne from Italy but I wish to return it (I'm in Canada).  It was a Post Office employee who brought the cologne to my mail box, but at the Post Office, they now refuse to mail my perfume because it is considered a "hazardous" item (theoretically flammable). 

I have no idea how I can ship it back. UPS etc are all prohibitively priced. I had no idea this was a hazardous item as I've been revceiving lots of bottles of cologne via Canadian and European mail.  RIght into my mailbox. CLearly marked, too, regarding contents of package.

So does anyone know how I can send it back? 

Thank you.

[pjcdn2005]

I've read that in the US, perfume is supposed to be sent by surface mail so the same may true here. But sending it back surface to Italy would take anywhere from 1-3 months so I wouldn't recommend that you do that as the seller and ebay will probably close the return before then.

The seller may not have specified that the item was perfume on the outside of the package..that could be why there wasn't a problem sending it.

[femmefan1946]

Most perfumes do contain oils or alcohol and are flammable.

FedEx is currently offering a special on international shipping to Canadian sellers. Which could be any Canadian member.

http://www.fedex.com/ca_english/ebay/seller-agreement.html

Ask yourself.

Why am I returning this? If it is basically a Buyer Remorse (don't like the smell, for example) perhaps it would make a nice present for someone?

Is the value of the perfume higher or lower than the cost of return shipping?

If it is a Not As Described problem, eBay requires the seller to send return postage to the unhappy buyer.  This can be done by sending the appropriate amount using Paypal's Send Money service. (Or Canadian stamps through the mail if the seller is imaginative.)

In an NAD dispute, if the seller does not send return shipping, the buyer wins the case and is refunded.

If the item is counterfeit, it cannot be sold, shipped or imported.

If you do return the cologne to the seller, mark the package as Returned Merchandise for customs.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Unfortunately shipping what are considered hazardous goods has always been a very complicated/expensive procedure since the rules went in during the 80ies. Canadapost link attached with their list of unacceptable items attached.  See section 6.1 Class 3. Similar items can get stopped going on passenger planes on a regular basis.

https://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/manual/PGnonmail-e.asp#1378258

A possible solution to cut your losses? Sell to a friend or give as a gift at Christmas. We won't tell! Promise!!!  🙂 Maybe also pass it on to your seller for future reference purposes.

-CM

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Regulations for shipping hazardous items and services you "may" or "may not" be able to use with FEDEX attached.

https://smallbusiness.fedex.com/international-dangerous-goods.html

Special attention to: Understand your responsibilities section.

-CM

[musicyouneed]

I think that you will not be able to send it back at least not by air.  It would have to be by boat and that could take a couple of months if it ever does arrive back in Italy.  I don't ship anything to Italy because of their lousy mail system. 

I just would keep it and try to sell it on some local websites, facebook, craigs,etc.  Or maybe give or sell it to a friend.  

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

FYI for anyone considering shipping anything that is considered hazardous or a dangerous good by Air, Ground, Rail or Sea with any carrier:

Regulations apply to all shipping methods and standard practise that there is a handling charge applied. It is important that first items are packaged properly and meet appropriate standards according to each carrier/particular mode of shipping. Correct Hazardous labels/Package Orientation labels are applied to the packaging and documentation is included with each shipment.  

Fines as per Transport Canada Feb 2018

https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/tdg/ticketing-menu-205.htm

Example: Purolator Regulations

Special Handling and Dangerous Goods Enhancements and Updates with surcharges.

https://www.purolator.com/en/campaigns/sh-dg/index.page

Anyone remember Lac Megantic? That was the extreme end of the spectrum when procedures were not properly followed and major fines/jail time was the end result. Not to mention the deaths and destruction.

Quick Facts

• Transport Canada was also involved in a joint investigation with the RCMP that revealed that Irving Oil violated safety requirements under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, resulting in the company being charged and found guilty and being ordered to pay $400,320 in fines and $3,599,680 for the implementation of research programs in the field of safety standards.

Any person shipping anything hazardous needs to be aware of these regulations along with anyone accepting these items. Ignorance is not a valid excuse.

-CM

[snoozyboots]

The outside of the package was clealry labelled perfume so I don't htink that's the issue.

[snoozyboots]

I am returning this because I have had this perfume in my life for over 30 years and this articular bottle doesn't smell exactly right, and I don't like the difference. I think the seller doesn't know what all the perfumes he sells are supposed to smell ike and maybe someone sold him this bottle which is not authentic.

It doesn't really matter what eBay requires regardning returns if the post office won't accept the parcel.

[snoozyboots]

I wouldn't presume to gift perfume to anyone, as scents are a very personal choice. If someone likes scent X, then it's ok to give them scent X products, because you know what they like, but this is different. Also it cost me $200, and I don't know anyone who I'd give anything that expensive to.

[snoozyboots]

O ave looked into Fedex and UPS and they have both refused to send it, or to send it for less than about the price of what I paid, so no money back, really, if I return it that way.

[snoozyboots]

I will try craigslist and hope someone in my city wants it.

[snoozyboots]

Yes it was the extreme end of the spectrum and not really appicable to my situation.

[musicyouneed]

I also find that some perfumes over time their scent changes.  Even if it was new, depending on where it was stored, in a warm or cold environment it change the smell.   I have perfumes that have changed, however they had been opened.

[anngrave-8]

This is a ridiculous comparison! Perfumes, alcohol etc. are always allowed on passenger planes in checked luggage if they exceed the carry on liquids limit. None of this is in any way comparable to shipping millions of gallons of crude oil in old cars on tracks that have gone to the dogs in a cost-cutting environment that has eroded every single safety measure put in place to avoid disaster including but not limited to having this freight train manned and supervised by one single lone employee. It’s just not comparable. Canada Post is just lagging behind other postal services - we ought to do what the USPS does and give specific labelling and packaging instructions and have some kind of ground shipping option. I receive several packages per week from Major beauty brands and many of them have «hazmat» content - that would be anything from nail polish to perfume to anything that has a pressurized mechanism. It’s not especially well packaged and many of them come by air shipping from across the country but i guess that being a large Canafa Post customer with special licenses somehow makes these goods less dangerous to ship when a big company is doing it.

[lady.stark]

I recently asked myself the very same questions... I have a perfume bottle that sold for almost $100 in the US. I would love to sell mine, because I'm not particularly found of the scent. But reading the boards, it seems I can't?

How come Yves Rocher, Avon, etc. have been shipping perfumes through the mail for decades and are still doing it? How are they able to do that? I would like to know....

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@anngrave-8 

The rules for planes are as follows:

Packing Perfume in Baggage

In carry-on baggage, liquid perfume falls under the TSA's 3-1-1 rule. The rule allows each passenger to pack liquids, gels and aerosols in containers of up to 3.4 ounces, with all containers fitting in a single 1-quart plastic bag.  Get the wrong agent and they can reject things at their discretion and say goom-bye to your slightly oversized expensive bottle of perfume.

The reasons Canadapost and other couriers have rules in place goes back approximately to the mid 80ies for the purpose of preventing accidents BEFORE they happen. At least that's when I first received training to ship items properly with my job. See official regulations below. Because mail CAN be moved by air stricter regulations are in affect. As someone mailing a parcel, do you really know how your parcel will move.?

https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/legisl/tdg/tdg_overview.html

https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/tdg/clear-menu-497.htm

Regarding companies that ship those products on a daily basis, they are doing things one of 3 different ways. 1) Doing it properly with the correct documentation/packaging and their employees have been fully trained. 2) have applied for consumer commodity permissions with the correct permits and are packaging according to required standards and regulations. FYI. (To get a package tested for conformance is a MAJOR time-consuming/expensive process.)

Consumer commodity is a hazardous material that is packaged and distributed in a quantity and form intended or suitable for retail sale and designed for consumption by individuals for their personal care or household uses. This term can also include certain drugs or medicines.

3. Lastly, pleading ignorance and not doing things according to the rules and taking a chance on the fines if it's discovered during transport or leaks or explodes in transit. Not everyone packages everything "perfectly" and accidents DO happen. Re:(Your example of packages coming from Major Cosmetic Companies. They took a chance and got lucky nothing happened.)

The rules are in place for a reason. Frustrating, but up to you if you want to take the chance. I would never personally recommend doing so. And you may think you have packaged something properly but if something heavy were to fall on it would it stand up to the punishment?

-Lotz

[anngrave-8]

Those are the rules for carry on luggage. In your checked baggage there’s no specific limit on the number of perfumes you can bring. I travel with perfumes all the time and if I travel to Paris or Italy I always bring home at least 5 bottles I can’t get here and declare them with no issues.

As a matter of fact, bringing perfumes on planes is highly encouraged - if you’re flying internationally you’re encouraged to shop at the duty free and there are only a few things people buy there - booze or perfume. They stick it in a plastic bag and store it away on the flight.

The entire argument about perfumes rests on the theory that some perfumes contain a form of alcohol that can maybe be lesd than ideal in some flight conditions - maybe. On the other hand every single passenger plane in the world that leaves every airport every day has pefumes on it - perfumes in the cargo hold, in carry on luggage and perfume stacked in duty free bags courtesy of the duty free shops - that’s a whole lot of airplanes with perfumes on them and I can’t find a single instance of a perfume related airplane accident or small incident. So if every single flight has some perfume on it - if it’s proactively encouraged for international flights - if there’s no recorded accident that has resulted from this ever - I’m going to go ahead and say that something else is at play here.

Now I am just a person who loves perfume so I buy a lot of it and gift a lot of it - I’m not a reseller or anything but professionally I do policy and advocacy work and I can say that laws, rules and regulations are not always perfect and although we live in a great, democratic country in some instances some things are a bit more influenced by large lobbies or monied interests than they ought to be.

The questions you raise about expensive licensing are very relevant I think... The US postal system has a system for dealing with things like perfume - it has to be specially packaged and there’s a content warning symbol that is placed on the package so it gets special handling. The service costs a few dollars extra because of the special handling and it is shipped via ground shipping - true - but I don’t think it has to be - major companies manifestly ship cargos of perfume via air shipping and when I receive a package that’s been on a plane from an official vendor all it is is a perfume in its box in another box surrounded by scrunched up brown paper or a few airbags thrown in thrown in to fill the extra space. When I have received perfume unofficially it’s always been packaged with a lot more TLC and care... Either way though I’ve never seen anything that looks like rocket science packaging when buying perfume that comes from a major brand but there are ways that they could offer this service if they wanted. There’s just no sufficient motivation for that kind of effort at the moment.

So It seems fairly obvious to me that this isn’t truly a safety issue but more of a brand protection issue - it’s a small but lucrative market and the large companies who own most of the brands that compose the lion’s share of the market don’t want small sellers and re-sellers eating into their profits so they likely lobby extensively to protect their interests. If there’s money to be made somewhere rest assured that there are always lobbyists representing those interests in the halls of power.

I am not even specifically responding to your post it’s just that in these types of threads I always see someone invariably implying that individuals or resellers are terrible people for wanting to ship perfumes because they are willing to - allegedly - put other people at risk and i am just saying that I think people need to apply common sense here - does the name on the outside of a box somehow make the perfumed safer? Does placing perfumes in a duty free bag somehow make them safer? If perfumes are unsafe onboard a flight why are we encouraged to buy them at every major international flight terminal? Because either it’s unsafe and they are risking millions of lives every day to earn a few dollars at the duty free or this is actually nonsense and it’s perfectly safe and everyone knows it except for individual consumers.

If there is a way to package the perfumes safely that service could be made available to a wider market at a smaller additional cost for handling. It will never happen unless people start demanding it - if everyone just assumes that this insane state of affairs somehow makes sense and that it is a fair safety measure nothing will ever change.

It may not seem important - so we can’t ship a perfume who cares right? But the only people who benefit from these rules are major companies and these regulations mean that small would be indie perfumers are priced out of the modern market almost immediately before they even open their doors. In today’s market small indie perfumers sell their things online - they have to - and as I’ve said before I’ve only come across one Canadian indie company. They sell perfume oils which can be mailed with no issues because they don’t contain alcohol. Perfume oils don’t project and last as well though - some people prefer them but ultimately they are not as efficient in terms of longevity or projection. Perfumers are also forced to use a much heavier concentration of ingredients which is costly and they don’t benefit from economies of scale on their material. I would like to see more small businesses flourish and I would like to see more fairness and common sense in the way that so-called safety regulations are applied.

OP: I know that people do ship perfumes internationally by describing them as cosmetics or bath oils or collectible glass etc. but you do run the risk of having the package seized and allegedly destroyed (so they say). I’ve never tried shipping it internationally myself though I’ve received a few perfumes from international sellers with no issues. Still - you said it’s a $200 perfume so I wouldn’t risk it. You CAN ship the perfume legally through DHL but that will likely be expensive - I’m thinking in the vicinity of $60 or so at least if I were to provide a ballpark estimate.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@anngrave-8 

Regarding the rules on dot com and shipping dangerous goods. Specifics at the bottom for UPS/USPS shipments.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/FedEx-Dangerous-Goods-or-Hazardous-Materials-Noncomplian...

-Lotz

[lady.stark]

I was wondering... can I ship my perfume only to Canadians, since Canada Post in usually by ground across Canada? I could maybe use UPS for the US and International...