Shipping used audio equipment from US to Canada (1 Viewer)

[Dustin B]

Anybody done this? I'm looking at buying a used Denon or B&K receiver off audiogon.com.

Will I have to pay tax on this? Will there be any duty since it went to the US first?

Brokerage and tax on brokerage will still be there though I'm sure.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

Dustin I've been buying gear from the US for a while and basically a good rule of thumb is to take the US dollar figure and double it. That new number will be about what yo can expect to pay in canadian funds. You will have to pay both tax on the declared amount plus a duty fee and a handeling fee. The handeling fee if shipped via UPS will likely be pretty significant with respect to the cost of the item. If you go with Fedex (if possible) or USPS (regular mail) it will be far lower and only $5 with USPS since it will get handed over to Canada post at the boarder.

 

[Daryl Furkalo]

I major disadvantage with USPS though is no insurance from US to Canada. There should be no 'duty' on the item, but you will pay PST & GST in customs charges, which technically isn't duty. As Andrew said, UPS charges a large amount for handling, $50-ish. I have never used Fedex before though, but I use my US addresses since I am right beside the border so I only ever pay taxes.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

Daryl I'm positive you can insure parcels sent via USPS into canada...at least the speaker parts I had sent to me from denver had insurance on them.

 

[Cam S]

Dustin, to be honest, I myself wouldn't bother ordering somehting like that from the states. It's just too much hassle. If you look around long enough you should be able to find something in Saskatoon or in Canada.

 

[Dustin B]

USPS will only insure up to 695USD. I will never use FedEx again as they basically stole money from me the last time I sent something with them.

Crunching the numbers 7-10day USPS will end up about $110CDN. 7-10 day UPS including brokerage should be about $120CDN. For the size of item I'm considering.

I've only every shipped new items purchased from a business from the US (never been charged PST; same goes for the brokerage fee). But this is a private sale of a used item. So I'm wondering if there will be any tax on it. There not being would of course be the answer I want to hear

Cam, if you want to check the papers out there in BC for me please do. High end Denon or B&K from a few years ago is what I've been looking at so far.

 

[Cam S]

No problem Dustin, I'll check the papers out for ya and keep you posted.

 

[wayne p]

You may want to check out this Canadian site for both private and dealer sales of new and used gear:

www.canuckaudiomart.com/

 

[Dustin B]

I'll be damned. There is a guy selling a AVR202 on that site. Thing is he wants $2000CDN for it. I made him an offer of $1325, guess I'll see what happens.

 

[DavidY]

Dustin,

If you get it, are you planning to use Paypal or an escrow service? Just wondering how Canadians buy and sell large ticket items (used; private sales) in a stressfree way?

Dave

 

[AaronNWilson]

I think if you buy US made products you won't have to pay duty on them, B&K is american right?

 

[Dustin B]

I'm sure there won't be any duty on the B&K. Might be on a Marantz, Yamaha, Denon etc. My real concern here is tax. 7% of an item this large adds a chunk to the cost. Guess I'll try phoning UPS this morning and see if they can tell me.

I plan to use a credit card through Paypal, or this guy also belongs to the C2it.com service. The guy I'm dealing with also has a good rating on audiogon.com. And I've heard of few people having problems with items on audiogon. But if things go wrong, ie fraud, I'm pretty sure Visa will cover me. Guess I should check that one too.

 

[DavidY]

Stay away from UPS....high brokerage fees.

In Nov 2002, I bought a Rio600 MP3 player from Computer Geeks in the US. Cost was US$39 plus shipping. They shipped it via USPS...paid PST, GST and CDN$5 handling fee...then I found it to be defective. They sent a replacement via UPS (they were to ship it via USPS...#^%@&*)...got a notice from UPS asking me to pay over CDN$37 to clear it....told them to return to sender as I wouldn't pay for it. Ripoff artists!!! Still awaiting my replacement MP3 player from CG right now.

Sorry for the rant.

Dave

 

[Dustin B]

I understand your rant and agree to an extent. On lighter items you are very correct. But the receivers I'm looking at weigh ~50lbs. UPS Ground plus $55 brokerage fee fully insured will be within a few dollars of USPS 7-10day service and only insured for $675 of the $800 declared value.

If I ship USPS Surface, the cost of shipping will be the same as UPS Ground and there will be the significantly smaller brokerage fee. But I won't be able to insure for the full value of what I'm paying for the item and the delivery time frame becomes 4-6 weeks (instead of 7-10days).

Guess I'll have to decide if the possible loss of $125US and waiting an extra couple weeks is worth the $50CDN savings on shipping and brokerage.

 

[DavidY]

Dustin,

Is Purolator or DHL an option (i.e., anything but UPS)?

Dave

 

[Dustin B]

DLH would be $60US more. And Purolator is a Canadain courier, so a shipment from the US can't use it.