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Best way to ship small value items--US to Canada??

I just did a search on this topic on A'gon, & did get quite a bit of info. Also, I have mailed a couple of CD's (USPO) to Canada with apparently no problem.

My current dilema: I sold a small $25 item to someone in Toronto (from US). I tried to ship it UPS, & spent about 1 1/2 hours on their website trying to decipher all the customs forms, which I think would need a really good lawyer to figure out. Finally, there was a place to click something (???) where I wouldn't have to send all the forms with the item, just sign something on the pack of the UPS label. Of course, the UPS guy later refused to take the box, saying I had to have "all 3 forms attached or it would just be totally stuck in Customs".

So, I voided the UPS shipment, now I'm thinking of sending USPS.
If I'm using their website correctly, it would cost only $2.35 to send a small 8 oz. box to Canada via "Airmail Letter Post ". Or, I might (not sure) be able to fit it into a Global Priority Mail - Flat-rate Envelope (large) for $7. Of course neither would have insurance or tracking. And I charged less than $10 for shipping so Global Express Mail at $15.50 is out.

Any advice? I'm thinking use the Airmail Post & take my chances. BTW, as I recall, the USPS only requires a brief 1 page Customs Form, not 3 pages like UPS. Thanks in advance for any advice!
steveaudio
stp0111
10 posts
 
i've received things simply dropped in the mail, such as tubes and cartridges and they arrive faster and with less additional costs than the other options. it also seems that the brothers of usps communicate well with the brothers of canada post. if the items is small and less that $250-300, usps is the way to go for me.
trader128
13 posts
 
Tvad has hit it on head...express mail is the way to go...I ship 10 to 15 items a week to Canada via express mail and have never had a problem...I tried lower cost shipping and it either took too long...or got lost...and they charged the buyer a hefty duty fee...express mail to Canada is cheaper than if you were sending it to the lower 48 states...so my vote is USPS to Canada...just remember to get the phone number of the buyer and put it on the form...you will find most Canadian buyers ask for USPS...good luck
mike_zundzgud's avatar
mike_zundzgud
2 posts
 
I just sold some gear that I need to ship to Japan and Taiwan. I was going to use Fed-ex, but now you have me thinking. My business sends things overseas about every other month. We've always used Fed-ex and have never had a problem, at least one that we could understand. Chinese yelled into a phone is totally incomprehensible, so who knows? But it is expensive and we always get an additional charge about a month after we ship for duties. So it is almost impossible to tell how much the shipping will cost. Does anyone know how the USPS is at shipping to the far east? And how long it takes?
tobias
1,534 posts
 
Mike_z, perhaps you should make this a thread of its own to get more responses. For my part, having shipped to Japan only once, I can say that Canada Post Xpress to the Far East worked very well, and in the time promised. The only surprise was that they could not track a package past the port of landing. If the package went to Narita, for example, tracking stopped after that.

One of my Far East correspondents says that USPS is if anything, faster than Canada Post.
david_berry
211 posts
 
Smaller sized items, USPS.
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