Shipping holiday gifts to Canada

[Earmuffs 1]

shipping to Canada is HORRIBLE!

I had to pay $130 in brokerage fees to ship MY laptop.

Also Canada post is a joke.

Im glad I live in a country that has a proper mail system.

[cmartyn 0]

Got my plane tickets booked. :-) Can't wait. Not sure if I want to go home or I just need the time off.

[Cassie 8]

I've never had problems shipping boxes from the US to Canada and vice versa. I am not sure how the changes in the postal rates will affect sending my Christmas boxes this year -- if there will be a huge difference in costs.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

The USPS no longer offers a Parcel Post rate outside of the US, Cassie. The cost nearly triples unless the gifts are really small. I recently sent a 4 pound small box to my brother - (8' x 8 ' x 8') and it cost $26. I regularly used to ship things to Canada via USPS but no more. I'll be using UPS this time for my 20 pounds of gifts.

Edited December 3, 2007 by Kathryn41

[Flames9_RN 358]

thats 1 reason we went to a gift exchange or send gift certificates! One buys a gift for such a such price,then have to add on more $$$ for shipping!! I would rather just mail (some ya can email) a gift cert card! Little impersonal, but saves on $$$

[Reba 2]

Thanks for the info Neiks. It would be a dinner wine it does have a 7% alcohol content. Will it be sent back to me or will they garbage it if I send it.

It is very unlikely that they'll return it to you. More likely confiscate the entire package and destroy it. You can't send alcohol of any type. Even if you were to send a beauty product and it had alcohol in it, they wouldn't allow it.

[trailmix 77]

I personally never mail gifts, I just shop online for the peeps in the U.S., in fact I ordered my Mom's gifts from Penney's yesterday and she only lives down the street from me.

I'm still unhappy with Canadian and American retailers and their lack of online shopping in Canada. I mean really, if you go to say Walmart.ca you can click on items to add to your shopping list so you can go to the store and buy it, gee thanks for that handy tool walmart!!

Anyway, I am officially an online shopper and if those stores don't want my business it's ok by me!

[trailmix 77]

yep, its http://www.abitofhome.ca

Just placed an order here, nice site

[Carlawarla 1]

I've sworn off UPS after they ripped me off when Gene used their service to send a book to me in Canada. UPS wouldn't release it to me until I paid a $25.00 charge for it. It had cost Gene $20.00 to send it to me. After this incident, we googled this practice of UPS's, and found MANY irate people. Anyway..I'm getting away from the reason I was posting!

I just mailed my kids Christmas package from St. Louis here to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It cost me $36.54 to mail. That was with priority shipping (there is only express and priority now). The box was pretty big, and it was 16 pounds, so really, I didn't think it was that costly. Will take 6-10 business days.

Carla

[Cassie 8]

The USPS no longer offers a Parcel Post rate outside of the US, Cassie. The cost nearly triples unless the gifts are really small. I recently sent a 4 pound small box to my brother - (8' x 8 ' x 8') and it cost $26. I regularly used to ship things to Canada via USPS but no more. I'll be using UPS this time for my 20 pounds of gifts.

I've never sent through Parcel Post, it's always been Priority Mail International, so not sure if there were be much of a difference. I just checked the rates on usps.com and they seem about what I remembered them to be.

I'm not a big fan of UPS or Fed-Ex, but if I have to use them, I go with UPS, it's the cheaper of the two evils.

[neiks 19]

QUOTE(Allie @ Dec 2 2007, 06:55 PM)

Thanks for the info Neiks. It would be a dinner wine it does have a 7% alcohol content. Will it be sent back to me or will they garbage it if I send it.

It is very unlikely that they'll return it to you. More likely confiscate the entire package and destroy it. You can't send alcohol of any type. Even if you were to send a beauty product and it had alcohol in it, they wouldn't allow it.

They will take out the alcohol and it will be destroyed. The remainder of the goods will be forwarded on to the recipient.

[Flames9_RN 358]

funny story!! On my first big trip with the Cdn Navy, went away for like 5 months (UN embargo of Haiti) Pots of cal lin Jamaica, Aruba, etc I had bottles and bottles of hard liquor!! What shall i do with them?? Bring them back into Canada and pay duty, or not declare them, as Customs rarely ever actually comes onboard the ships, OR mail them to my folks in SK from San Diego!! yeppers, i wrapped them all up perfectly and mailed them to my folks!! Of course I didnt put my real name down! Did they arrive? Ya bet they did!! packaged was open, bottles were smashed, so was just the glass, and with a note inside: "Enjoy your rum" lol So Customs does have a sense of humor!!

[neiks 19]

"Enjoy your rum" lol So Customs does have a sense of humor!!

Geez Flames, what do you expect, you never sent a tin of Timmies with it! lol

[thermophile 0]

alcohol is actually supposed to be refused by the shipping company regardless of where you want to ship it, unless you are willing to pay for dangerous goods shipping. that is crazy expensive and can only be sent to specific places (companies, agencies, universities, etc)