whats up with these duty charges?

[leaky-bucket-labs]

I'm trying to buy something from a seller but his listing wants "duties" which I thought was the taxes.

All the other sellers show 0 duties and 1 lets you choose paying duties now or later, the difference being about $2.

What is the seller doing to get taxes and duties so I can ask them to fix it?

The last image shows a purchase I made a few days ago the reflects the "no duties"

thanks

[marnotom!]

I gave up trying to find the specific listings in question as there are too many similarly-titled listings out there.  Maybe someone has more patience and time than I do.

As duties are based on the item's country of manufacture or origin, I'm going to guess that the seller of the item that's attracting duties hasn't provided information in the "item specifics" section that would lead the eIS bot to conclude that the pistons are manufactured in the United States or Mexico, so the bot has to calculate duty on them.

[femmefan1946]

We pay duty on imports.

From the USA that duty is a percentage of the price if the value is over our duty-free allowance of $150.

From the rest of the world the duty-free allowance is only $20.

If you are not charged duty at the time of purchase, you will be charged duty on delivery.

If that delivery is by Canada Post there will be an additional service charge of $9.95.
If the delivery is by courier (UPS *for example) there will be a service charge /customs brokerage fee of $25 or more.

*If the delivery is by FedEx there may be a random charge made later after you have accepted the delivery, because FedEx is evil.

[marnotom!]

Okay, I was able to compare the listing that had duty applied to the purchase of the pistons to one where duty wasn't charged.

The first listing states that the pistons are "Speed Pros" in the title, but the Item Specifics states that they're "Sealed Power."  I know sweet fudge all about auto parts, but from what I've been able to figure out, both brands are handled by the same distributor.  For some parts, both brands are on the packaging, and on some items they seem to be considered distinct.  I'm sure you can set me straight on all this as this is more your "thing" than mine.

The other item I looked at has "Sealed Power" stated as the brand in both the listing title and item specifics.  They have a different UPC number stated in Item Specifics than the ones in the listing for the item where duty is charged.  My takeaway from this is that they're considered to be different pistons from "Speed Pro" and the two brands of pistons may have different countries of manufacture/origin.  Again, this is something you're probably more up to speed on than I am.