Im in canada now, montreal. Im from the usa. There are some electronics that i like to purchase on ebay and it ships from the usa to canada.
This is what i want to purchase
Shows price as $92.01 CAD BUY IT NOW, $43.01 CAD as internationally shipping cost and $8.68 as the import charges so if you look at this, its about $143 or so roughly CAD. However, i read when shipping from usa to canada, there is some global shipping program so any item thats over 60 dollars has to be subject to import duties and fees and that 8.68 is not the full price?
So this monitor refurnished is $143, but how much will it cost total after all the import dutie fees etc. HOw would you calculate it?
Is buying from the usa to ship to canada never a good thing unless you buy something under 60 cad so you dont have to pay those duty and taxes?
On the ad it says that the cost of import duties will be $16.16 (CAD or USD I don’t know), and that the final price including shipping will be confirmed at checkout.
I have an acquaintance who is part of the team which implemented this functionality he has explained it to me at length so I’ll try to reproduce what he said and pass on any questions you have for him.
Basically the value you see in the ad ($16.16) is a quote of the import duties, it will very likely be identical at checkout but the reason they don’t confirm that is that some countries have different import fees based on how the product enters the country, so changing the shipping method would change the import duty quote. I’m pretty sure Canada is not one of those countries, so you’re probably good.
The import duty may be different at the border but the shipper is guaranteeing that you will pay only $16.16 or whatever they have quoted you. The best part in my opinion is that the item will be shipped directly to your door rather than waiting at the post office for you to pay the duty.
So to answer your question, I would say that it is a bad idea to buy something valued over $60 from the US unless you can buy it using this global shipping program.
You can get really screwed by import duty, I bought a camera from the US which they shipped using UPS I think. They needed payment of the duty before they could give me the item and it was really difficult to line up a delivery with when I was home, so eventually I had to pick it up at the depot, and paid the $11 or so duty. When I got home I realized that they screwed up and sent me a crappy digital watch instead of the camera. The company let me keep the watch and sent me out the camera, so then I had to do the lining up with UPS dance again and pay the duty again. There might have been a mechanism to get a refund of the $11 I paid incorrectly but I avoid government bureaucracy at all costs so I didn’t investigate.
If the device is at a good price for you including the import/shipping I would say go for it.
Usually you can find a service just across the border fnear a Canadian big city that allows you to ship to them and pick up and carry across the border yourself. (If you make a weekend of it, you can get up to $800 duty free). Not sure what the best such local depot service would be for Montreal.
Shipping to the USA is substantially cheaper than to Canada usually, and you avoid a lot of broker fees.
Another “fee” that applies to items shipped from the USA to Canada is tax. You are supposed to pay the GST on any item shipped from the US, unless the shipper pays this at the source (i.e. it is built into their pricing).