Be informed before you buy your favours from the U.S.!

I often get customers contacting me to tell me they have found exact products on my website on other websites but at much lower prices. I often chuckle and tell them to investigate further, only to have them contact me later to tell me that the other website was American and the products were in U.S. dollars. When you then factor in international shipping costs from the U.S. to Canada along with expensive brokerage and duty fees, it actually turns out not to be such a great deal after all.

Take a recent example: a customer contacted me about a wedding coaster favour she had seen on my website that was selling for $2.25 each. An American website was selling the same favour for $1.50 U.S.! She wished to purchase 100 favours. Here is what it would have cost her to purchase it from the American store:
$1.50 converted to Canadian dollars (with exchange of 1.05) is $1.05 x 100 = $105.00
Brokerage and duty fees would be about $35-$45
And here is the real kicker, international shipping charged by the U.S. company would be $80 (Remember that coasters can be quite heavy to ship)!
Total Cost: $220-230 plus your federal and provincial taxes which would be billed to you when the delivery guy comes to your door with another invoice for the brokerage and duty charges.

When you purchase from us, shipping is much lower (probably between $20-$40) and, in fact, we currently offer free shipping on orders over $250 within Canada.

What I warn my customers about is the large number of online retailers out there who will lure you in with low product prices - but where they get you is the extremely high shipping costs (which they have inflated and are making a profit off of) and are counting on you to forget the cross-border fees.

So in the end, it doesn't really save you money to shop in the U.S. Buying in Canada would be comparable and sometimes even cheaper in cost, and you don't have to worry about cross-border hassles. Plus, you would be supporting the Canadian economy :)

I am not encouraging my customers not to shop around - on the contrary, I love it when the customer has shopped around and comes back to shop with confidence. We price our products competitively. If you have found a similar product from a Canadian company that is less expensive, we will do our best to price match it if possible.

Regards,

Diana, Owner