Ray Wu's store - duty/brokerage fees?

[towtruck]

Hi.

I live in Canada, near the US border.  I have the option of ordering items into my US address when ordering stuff from overseas and then importing it myself.

In the past , when having items from overseas shipped to my home in Canada, some couriers have unpleasant brokerage fees and of course the Canadian government want their tithe, which always seems to add a few weeks.

So, have any Canucks ordering from Ray Wu had to cough up brokerage fees, duty fees, etc?

Are there any 'surprise' charges that people in the US have experienced?

I am just trying to figure out which address of mine to ship to and what, if any, extra charges there might be.

Thanks,
Steve

[Rainlover]

Steve,
I just placed my 4th order with Ray yesterday. I live in the US and  I have never had to pay anything other than the cost of goods and freight.

John

[Steve Gase]

Steve,
I just placed my 4th order with Ray yesterday. I live in the US and  I have never had to pay anything other than the cost of goods and freight.

John

I have not had the unpleasantness of customs fees with Ray's store.


I have heard that using DHL makes it more likely that you will not have this problem.  Using FedEx on the other hand makes it more likely.  YMMV

[taybrynn]

Some say this might be a part of the shipping fees.

THe trick is in how exactly you classify these things for your country, which classification equals which duty/tariff rate, etc.

I believe the correct duty if something like 6 or 8% in the US but I've never seen it get applied to small purchases by folks like us, not doing this commercially or anything, just for private use.

That said, you could almost see how the extra high shipping costs might cover this or average it out.  IN general, China doesn't seem to follow international rules much ... and suspect the insane amounts of tape on the packages are probably indirectly indented to reduce the number of packages opened, but thats just a wild guess.

[barbotte]

well here is my point of view as getting lots of stuff from either china or usa ..so far DHL is the best when it come from china as you will pay duty fee witch is in reality the tax ,, so in canada you will be paying 13 % taxe of the amount put on the custom form ...plus sometime 20 $ depending of the value ...as for fed ex and ups its another ball game ....now will it be cheaper getting ship to usa then transport it here .... welll you will pay duty for over there then when you bring it back here you will pay again... the tax on the value ... so unless you stay in usa more then 48 hours i dont think its worth it to get it ship there ,,,,but you can ask ray the shipping cost on both location to see if it worth it cheer

[towtruck]

Thanks for all the feedback.

In the past I have experienced the surprise $50 brokerage fees with couriers coming to Canada for computers items from both the US and Australia.  It puts a dent in the budget.  My worst problems have been with Fedex and TNT.

Surprisingly I have had good luck with the postal service ... just have to pay the 7 or 13% tax (depends upon the items tariff classification.

When I order, I'll hit Ray up for quotes to both the US and Canada.

[drlucas]

.....and i'm just outside of Toronto (east end - Pickering) so if you are ordering i'm willing to go in with you on an order. recently i purchased $180USD from Bill (inclusive of shipping fees from USPS) and got dinged with about $35 duty. When I bought the usb controller and dhl shipped it $0. not sure if the packaging said "xmas" on it that made it look like a gift, or if it was just the amount declared.  I also recall when i bought 3 skids of special rubberized gym flooring from california I had to get a broker to bring it in....and that ended up costing me a pretty penny, but i had a couple of good connections back then from work.

anywho - when you get quotes from ray, let me know what you get and if it makes sense to buy once ship twice let me know. i'm not ready for smart strings (YET) but i imagine by the time mid summer rolls around I might be itching to try some and he seems to be the best place to get the product from $wise.

cheers!
Ryan

[towtruck]

I'll drop you a line when I am getting ready to order from Ray Wu and we can get it sorted then.

There are so many things I am tempted by, I'll have to figure out what direction to start with.  My wife keeps telling me I am not allowed to Griswald   which is her way of having me check in on all stages of the project.

[plaberge]

I live in Vancouver and have ordered a few times from Ray. After the discount, Ray's shipping costs are the same US/Canada.  It's not the duty that's been the big extra ticket item but the combination of the GST/HST that's automatically collected by the couriers PLUS the process fee they tag on. This is always collected on COD upon delivery, which is pain in itself. To avoid this, I try to bunch all my orders from different suppliers, get my stuff shipped to my US postal address and drive down to pick it.