Canadian Shipping Ripoff !

[robin bird]

Live and learn i guess- but i am upset. Went to our local Subaru-Robin dealer via our local rental center to purchase 2 clutch shoes and 1 spring. Big mistake i said i would be willing to pay a bit more phoning the supplier AC Motor Electric the only registered supplier in our area. It had to go thru Edmonton Alberta who is the main supplier-who order from Subaru-Robin America--end result bill $145!! -$35 for clutch parts -$110 shipping!!-it came in 5 days-ihave had carbs sent from Pensylvannia for $15 U.S. postage-taking 10 days--i should have got a quote--from now on ill order from Staton Inc. direct and forget about these guys here. Canadians get ripped from UPS (not to be confused with United States Postal Service) who are incredible.I could not tell the supplier to stuff it because i had the bike at our local Rental center who are not making anything but $45 total labour--can see actual bill.Anyway be aware brothers !!

 

[ibdennyak]

I can feel your pain! I have the same problem here in Ak. It's not unusual to buy something for fifty bucks, and the shipping is 150. That, and it takes 3-4 weeks to get here. USPS would be maybe 25 for the same package in one week. Problem is no one wants to ship by mail.

 

[AussieSteve]

What's the difference between USPS and UPS?
I've had items delivered to Australia, from Canada and the US, by both, always for about $40.

 

[Dilly Bar Rob]

I agree robin, UPS is terrible.

I live in a rural area and UPS parcels get brought up here from Kamloops by purolator, which makes the situation even worse. Sometimes they leave it at your door, sometimes a neighbor, sometimes it stays at there office, sometimes they call you that the parcel is there, sometimes they don't, and you wait and wait wondering....

Me and my wife do a lot of ebaying, we try to stay away from UPS shipping as much as we can. Usually one can work this out with the seller. Last time I ordered something from an online store they only had UPS as a option.... I contacted them, they said they would not ship regular post but Fedex was ok... Woohoo, anything is better then ups. Every parcel that has come to me Fedex ends up reliably at the post office just as regular mail does, doesn't seem to cost as much as UPS either.

I learnt my lesson with UPS about 2 years ago. I bought an exhaust system online (store, not ebay) from the US. I got the exhaust fast, shipping was a bit high. I pick it up, no extra charges (taxes, import etc...), woohoo! Then about 3 months later I get a bill from UPS in my mailbox, $170 for broker fees, tax, etc!!! I call them, they say "oh yeah we do it like that so it gets to you faster, thanks for using ups....".I call BS on that, I have ordered many a item before that came UPS and needed taxes etc. paid, and they always let me know right away when I picked it up. The exhaust was worth like 200, paid over 100 shipping, paid 170 to ups, great deal :-/

Interestingly, 2 months ago I bought a similar exhaust system on ebay (again from the US). Shipped UPS (seller would not ship other way, but the deal was too good to pass up), cost me UNDER $200 total (3" exhaust system WITH the shippng). No import tax, brokerage etc. when shipping to canada was guaranteed in the auction. Guess what, it got here FAST and there were no other fees (at least so far....). I asked the seller how he can ship for such a low price, he said he uses "world ease" service from UPS....So in the end I guess it depends on the seller just as much as on UPS.

 

[Dilly Bar Rob]

What's the difference between USPS and UPS?
I've had items delivered to Australia, from Canada and the US, by both, always for about $40.

USPS- United States Postal Service (aka regular post in the US).

UPS- United Parcel Service (courier, available in US, Canada and probably most of the world)


USPS rocks imho, although not always the fastest definitely the cheapest way to ship pretty much anything from the US. We canadians can only dream of a service like that, seems that it costs about half as much to ship item A by USPS from location X in the states to me here in canada then it would cost me to ship the same item to location X using canada post....