
08-29-2012 01:33 PM
Canada Post has collected duties and taxes on behalf of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) for many years, and is paid for this service through a handling fee charged to customers. As of August 18, 2012, this handling fee will rise from $8.50 to $9.95 for all mail that has been assessed with import duties and/or taxes by CBSA.
Source:
www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/aboutus/news/announcements/customsfee.jsf
This makes it just over a year (middle of 2011) since the processing fee increased to $8.50 from the long time fee of $5.00 -- although (iirc) that price increase also included the ability to pay with credit card at your door (rather than just cash).
02-20-2013 07:43 PM
Frankly canada post is a joke,like most things in canada.
severly out classed by the other money loser usps
I use usps more often for there inexpensive quick service. But I would suspect that will be changing soon.
W1B-)
02-21-2013 03:03 AM
I have a customer who is just like you.
ilurk
Mwahahaha, Mine is an evil laugh.
I respect you for trying to match the online sale and coming close. Like I said, if the brick and mortar can come within 25% of the online sale, I'm satisfied. Sometimes they just need to be flexible and accept a lower margin to make the sale, otherwise, you won't see me again until it goes on clearance. Cost is king. You need to have an amazing song and dance and superior product support to convince me to buy full retail price. Mountain Equipment Co-Op is a good example of that. I'm proud to buy from them (they are an example of a brick and mortar store that also has a great online presence and sales).
If some retail stores want to hang on to a dream that they are living in the 1900's and can ignore online sales and nationwide or global competition, I'll be there at the closing sale to pick the bones.
Here in Canada, we think the ticket price is the be-all-end-all, but we forget that (most of) the rest of the world doesn't operate like that. Haggling and negotiation and comparison shopping is part of commerce, but salespeople here are oblivious to that. They are not taught how to make a sale and management doesn't give them the authority to make changes. They essentially never move beyond bored, 16-year-old retail slaves who can't be bothered to do more than point and rehash what the product rep. told them.
From what ilurk says, apparently the salespeople are not just irritated by negotiation, they are petty and vindictive little punks too.
02-21-2013 03:28 AM
I know a store in London with dead stock in a dying business and all the guy does is complain and complain. He would do better to get better stock and clean up his store and even do some dusting because customers do their own complaining about what it looks like.
Sounds like Novacks lol
The place had charm, but was full of stock they couldn't move with London's population. Nobody took the initiative to advertise the stock online, so the products just sat in the display cases and on the racks hoping that someone might drop by. They didn't adapt and now a lovely little store with a lot of history is gone.
On-line companies are different that local brick and mortar stores for many reasons. You can’t compare the two. It is unfair to try and especially feel that the local store is doing it just because they don’t want to ‘compete’.
On-line and brick and mortar stores are increasingly becoming one in the same, like MEC and Live out There. They realize that the two sales strategies can be symbiotic, attracting customers into the stores from the website and building the brand/spreading the word and reaching new customers.
02-21-2013 07:42 AM
lucash.
The reason why my prices are what they are is because I require a minimum margin to pay the cost of keeping a brick and mortar store open.
We pay triple the property taxes of what you pay on a similar valued residential property.
If we disappear your taxes would sky rocket.
I could run an online store out of my basement and pay virtualy no overhead.
I could maximise my profit and set it up so that it would be a one man operation and wouldn't need any employees.
02-21-2013 12:29 PM
Sounds like Novacks
LOL….no. Novacks was a good store…..strange store long ago….but good. Harry did well.
The place had charm, but was full of stock they couldn't move with London's population. Nobody took the initiative to advertise the stock online, so the products just sat in the display cases and on the racks hoping that someone might drop by. They didn't adapt and now a lovely little store with a lot of history is gone.
They do online sales, but they closed for other reasons….mostly $$$$.
On-line and brick and mortar stores are increasingly becoming one in the same, like MEC and Live out There. They realize that the two sales strategies can be symbiotic, attracting customers into the stores from the website and building the brand/spreading the word and reaching new customers.
It’s not possible for all brick and mortar stores. In this day and age every store should have a website for advertising …..and soon that will be the only advertising and eventually you will find both the phonebook and the yellow pages a thing of the past. That’s a good thing, considering what a rip off the yellow pages are. However for most brick and mortar stores to do on-line they would have to either carry a large amount of stock or have a company that is reliable in production and shipping. Nothing worse than a customer who doesn’t want to wait and wait for a product.
02-21-2013 12:39 PM
I remember when Novacks had their annex on Dundas and Adelaide.
I loved that store and I am sorry to see them close their downtown store.
02-21-2013 01:18 PM
The Dundas and Adelaide store was a bad move and became a failure. Of course anything from Adelaide and Dundas east was especially a failure after the city council approved closing that stretch of Dundas down for an outdoor mall concept. There were good stores there like London Furniture but they folded because of the sudden lack of customers. The instigator of the whole disastrous idea was Fink, the owner of Lion Auto Supply (the location where the now poor excuse for a flea market is).....and Fink was the first one to go out of business. Looked good on him, but knowing Fink he probably made money off it somehow.
Because of the poor decisions of city hall and the planning departments, Dundas east of Adelaide fell into disarray and became virtually a ghost block of closed store fronts. After that the less fortunate moved in and then that went to drugs and prostitution. The same has happened in downtown London on Dundas......bad councils and bad planning (too many malls and city hall selling out to developers) which has killed Dundas between Talbot and Wellington, as well as Richmond between Queens and York.
02-21-2013 01:22 PM
c) It would definitively put a crimp on international sales ..........................
That's exactly what I think we're going to see in Canada.
So they raised the processing fees a little........... but that is just one rather minor factor of many that are going on right now (on ebay).
All of which could ............ and very likely will........ combine to seriously hamper US sales to Canadians on ebay.
If no one is buying from the States, then are no taxes and/or duty to collect and the fat that the processing fees have been raised won't matter.
Whether those buyers stick around and buy from Canadians has yet to be seen................ but Canadians selling internationally should benefit in the long run.
Those US sellers who have been going on for years about what a PITA international customers are may get their wish very soon.
They've been wanting to keep their business within their own borders, and that may be just around the corner.
Some are, but on the whole Americans are just not all that polished when it comes to dealing with folks other than their own.
02-21-2013 01:26 PM
I remember when Novacks downtown sold military surplus. I especially remember boxes of bayonets that were very unique. They were sharp on one side and on the other serrated like a saw blade. They had been outlawed by the Geneva Convention as ‘too cruel’ (if there is such a thing in war) because those types of wounds would rarely heal. Novacks sold them for 10 bucks a piece. If I had of known back then what I know now, I would have bought every one of them off Harry.
02-21-2013 01:51 PM
"Whether those buyers stick around and buy from Canadians has yet to be seen.."
If Canadians were to stop all buying on eBay from American sellers (it will never ever happen)there would be about $500,000,000 in spending potential to be spent in Canada!
Not that all of it would be spent on eBay but the money would remain in Canada. WIN WIN
🙂 🙂 🙂
02-21-2013 02:02 PM
"
Not that all of it would be spent on eBay but the money would remain in Canada. WIN WIN
🙂 🙂 🙂
So I see you are finally agreeing with me............. 🙂 🙂 :).
No, Canadians will not stop buying from US sellers altogether................ of course not.
That would be bizarre, wouldn't it?
But, I'm pretty that some Canadians would stop buying on ebay altogether and those numbers might surprise you. :).
There are a lot of us................ not enough to matter to ebay on the whole, but it could be a significant number of Canadians on ebay nevertheless.
I know I'm almost there.
There are many buyers here who buy very specific items which Canadians simply do not sell in large enough number to make the hunt worthwhile.
Sure, we pick up the odd bottle of shampoo on the way as well, but the buyers I'm talking about won't come here just for that.
02-21-2013 02:07 PM
The deals i used to get from across the line & in Canada are just not there anymore in the category i sell in. So is life.
I don't think the Americans are too concerned regarding their loss of sales to Canada. At least, not yet as their market is huge.
I would always say 98% of my stock is usually found in the surrounding area.
Nothing wrong with buying local.
02-21-2013 02:07 PM
I bought one thing on ebay 10 years ago and was ripped off.
I haven't bought anything here since.
02-21-2013 02:10 PM
02-21-2013 02:14 PM
02-21-2013 02:18 PM
02-21-2013 02:33 PM
I buy from American wholesalers without problems (30k to 50k per year) but I would never buy anything on ebay again.
02-21-2013 02:34 PM
Did you know that an Englishman wrote "Danny Boy"?
02-21-2013 02:45 PM
02-21-2013 02:56 PM
US debt is approx 14.3 Trillion. Who owns that debt? Foreign governments hold about 46 percent of all U.S. debt. China owns 8%, approx 1.8 Trillion. Other large foreign holders of U.S. debt include Japan, which owns $912 billion; the United Kingdom, which owns $347 billion; Brazil, which holds $211 billion; Taiwan, which holds $153 billion; and Hong Kong, which owns $122 billion. These are who the US citizens owe and will be paying for generations to come.
‘’We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.’’
Thomas Jefferson
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816.
Get rid of the Federal Reserve