Hi. Great question!
What's mandatory is that your package gets to your customer in good condition and preferably unopened.
International Customs, like eBay is another constantly changing service. US customs has ALWAYS required tariff codes also known as "Harmonized Standards".
In past decades they were pretty relaxed when it came to lettermail and smaller packages under duty thresholds. Technology has helped them speed things up. Codes aren't cumbersome any more.
Your tarriff code, country of origin and point of origin are your 3 friends. They detail the contents, the maker's home country and the shipping origin of your export. Without them your export is somewhat anonymous. The more detail they have the less likely they are to with hold your export. Once with held you are dealing with humans.
If they have external package info they can poass it through a scanner and see if things check out. If they don't they move it to where it is examined.
Believe it or not, as an exporter, customs may phone or email you. Nothing new there. In 1983 US customs phoned me. I'd rented an instrument to a band playing a major concert in Seatle. The band's trucks were examined at the border. My phone number was on the export doc. For whatever reason the band couldn't cross into the US until the Country Of Origin (COO) of the blanket in the bass drum was determined.
Of course this is ridiculous however something else was at play with the band. The border needed a reason to hold them and they phoned me to kill time.
Recently as of November USPS requires all exports to include email addresses of the recipients. they may have a grace period I don't know.
I do recommend if you want to "PUSH" your shipments cross border If we're talking about USPS (last mile) and USA Customs you need these.
- correct tarriff code (Most items = 6 digits Some items more than 6 digits)
- country of manufacture
- country/state or prov of origin
- shipper's phone number
- shipper's email address
- recipient phone number
- NEW AS OF NOVEMBER 2023- Recipient email address (you can use the eBay coded buyer's email on your order under "buyer contact info"
Or you can trust your eBaydot ca label....
I've been following this since the "band blanket incident". It's not a probelm.
Canada Post is OK but UPS has better export guidance I think. Once you get the hang of it it's a heck of a lot easier than getting a ne TV remote to work!
It's worth it to keep your packages in the front of the line.
