A Vent About Online Christmas Shopping From Canada

Yes, shipping is ridiculous and I'm totally DONE with online stores who won't accept PayPal or credit cards from non-US addresses. So stupid and irritating.

Where do you shop from?

Old Navy US, and Dollar Tree are two stores I've tried to order from recently (the past month) that would not take my money.

True. But I have a US address, and want to pay for things from Canada and have them mailed to the US. There is NO reasonable reason why I shouldn't be able to do this. Many online retailers DO allow it, so going through the whole shopping process to find out that a store won't allow it is really irritating. 

We don't allow it because our system is set up for US addresses only. We don't sell to other countries at all even for billing. They aren't going to change our customized ordering programs to include billing addresses for a different country. It just isn't cost efficient or worth it. Then threre are different tax issues to handle too.

Sorry, but if other major online retails can do it, there's no real reason not to. Taxes aren't any more of an issue than when shipping to different states that have different taxes.

And disagree. I see what is going into a complete new ordering system. It costs millions and takes years to make and then test and train. My company has decided that US shoppers are where their profits are.

Drives me crazy too (I'm in New Zealand). I have a US shipping address and sometimes get things forwarded. Thankfully there are a lot more places that accept international orders now but the no international credit card thing is annoying if you want to buy a gift for someone in the US.

I have found a few places will accept phone orders though (for gift cards etc). I guess it's just that their systems aren't set up for non US cards.

It's annoying for sure.

I live 10 minutes from the US border, 15 minutes from Blaine, Washington. It's big business down there to rent post boxes to Canadians, and there are companies that will take your shipments and hold them for thirty days.

I have never tried this myself *AND* she did it a few years ago, but a former colleague got a secondary (US) shipping address added to her credit card profile so she could have a US billing and shipping address.

dollar tree has an online store?

My company ships to many countries around the world. One of the things we run into is people who don't want to put the import duties/taxes. Some countries require us to pay duties when our package arrives at their port. We have to pay those duties whether or not the customer ever pays us for the duties or not.

Then there is the hit or miss duty charges. I have had customers tell me I haven't been charged duties for the last 5 packages and they dinged me 25 bucks for this one. Most countries have a formula or table you can turn to in order to figure out what duties you will pay when you order something shipped to Canada. With Canadian orders we never know how much the customer will be charged or if they will be charged. We don't collect and remit import duty/taxes for Canada.

There is also that whole fraud issue. We see a lot of fraud orders being sent over seas.

Ashley in Canada if the customer doesn't pay the taxes and fees we have to pay to ship it back. I know there is at least one country we ship to that we have to pay the taxes and fees even if the customer refuses the package. Some countries if the customer refuses to pay the taxes and fees we have to pay to have it sent back to us as they don't allow us to abandon or destroy. We are continuously evaluating if we can keep shipping to countries that have those policies. It costs us a lot of money to ship items both ways.