Topic: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

I've seen a significant increase of traders in this community who have on their profile that they flat out refuse to trade to Canada.  I'm curious as to why. 

Why have you decided to lock out Canadian traders?  Did you have a bad trade experience with Canadian traders?  Were you advised to stick to America?  Do you disagree with the postal cost?

I'm not posting this out of anger, mainly curiosity, but with a slight frustration. I have personally found most of my trade business through here, and most of the traders coming from various places within USA.  I have yet to have a trade issue to arise in dealing with an American trader, and I do know that, if an issue were to pop up, I would deal with it as reasonably as possible to ensure that both parties are satisfied.

I know this won't apply to many who frequent this community since they do trade in to Canada, but I'm interested to hear from those who don't. smile

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

It costs a bit more to ship and you can't just drop it straight into the mailbox.  I just had to delay a shipment because the way I packaged the card would have cost me $8+ in S&H.

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

Were you using a plain white envelope for the trade, or a bubble mailer?  I've noticed that most trades between the two countries can get away with the ol' PWE and a bit of paper wrapping.

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

Shipping is significantly more expensive. It costs me at least 4 dollars to ship through USPS as you have to fill out a customs slip.

I ship anywhere in the US for $1.69 if I'm using a bubble mailer, or 46 cents if I'm using an envelope.

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

shipping costs more, customs declaration just to mail anything, tracking is prohibitively expensive and actual transit seems to drag on forever, which makes me nervous when even ~$50 trades are happening

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

How expensive is it, generally, when you ship to Canada?  I have yet to break $2 in postage for a single trade going in to USA.  Is it in how it's wrapped that bumps up the cost?  Also (and perhaps most mind bogglingly), why do you need to fill out a customs form?  I've never had to do that for a USA trade.

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

it's been a long time since I shipped anything to Canada but iirc postage was around $4? not a huge deal, but still double what I'd get charged for shipping domestically.

really, the dealbreakers for me are tracking (free if I ship domestically w/paypal sourced postage, $13 for international registered mail) and the customs form. I don't know why, either -- hell, I've had to fill them out just to ship to APOs

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

If you ship using a top loader in a plain white envelope it should be $1.10 - depending on weight. No need to fill out a customs form either.

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

lack of cheap tracking and the fact you have to fill out a customs form if you ship anything other than an envelope.

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

Minimum shipping cost is $1.10 I believe. Up to 2 ounces. I ship to canada, so long as it's mutually agreed that tracking isn't necessary.

edit: I don't use bubble mailers or customs forms. Just toploaders taped to some paper, and make sure the envelope isn't too thick. Works fine for me with relatively small numbers of cards.

Not really worth it to ship large numbers of cheap cards, though.

Last edited by rfioren (2013-09-18 12:44:20)

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

The only downside for me (this is a small one mind you) is actually having to go the Post office and send out opposed to just dropping it off in a mail box. Its just a pain in the butt since I get out of work around the same time Post offices are open til so it can be kinda of a rush if I cant get there in time. Other than that, I dont look at trading to Canada being any different than trading in the US. I will admit tho, that since I cant send with tracking, I tend to keep the trades under 50 but Ive done a handful and havent had an issue yet.

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

I've done some trading to Canada, and my reasoning for tending to avoid it is that tracking is like $8.00 bucks and you either have to lie or the recipient gets nailed with insane customs fees.  I will either do smallish trades that I am ok with not tracking or trades that are big enough to make tracking and customs hassles worth it.

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

I am willing to trade to Canada, no problem.  I get a bit antsy when trades get big $$-wise, but I've done 2 large ones with AsymptomaticPyrexia for example that went perfectly.

Mailing in a plain white envelope takes a global stamp, which isn't that much more.  Bubble mailers are more expensive, require a customs form, and cost a few bucks more but still manageable.

My big issues are these two:
1. It's an arm and a leg to do any sort of tracking or registration cross-border, and even then the post office cashiers will take pains to point out that there are no guarantees cross-border. 
2. Everything goes through Customs as well, which introduces a black box between me and my trade partner that will add a delay of some unspecified number of days depending on what time of year you're trying to trade.  I imagine the delay gets really bad around Christmas/Hanukkah but haven't had any in-person experience yet.  I have a pretty good feel for how long mail will take between when I send it and when the other person can mark it received, but I don't have that sense for cross-border.

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

Tracking alone to canada costs $10-$15... hmm

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

Nighthawk wrote:

I am willing to trade to Canada, no problem.  I get a bit antsy when trades get big $$-wise, but I've done 2 large ones with AsymptomaticPyrexia for example that went perfectly.

Mailing in a plain white envelope takes a global stamp, which isn't that much more.  Bubble mailers are more expensive, require a customs form, and cost a few bucks more but still manageable.

My big issues are these two:
1. It's an arm and a leg to do any sort of tracking or registration cross-border, and even then the post office cashiers will take pains to point out that there are no guarantees cross-border. 
2. Everything goes through Customs as well, which introduces a black box between me and my trade partner that will add a delay of some unspecified number of days depending on what time of year you're trying to trade.  I imagine the delay gets really bad around Christmas/Hanukkah but haven't had any in-person experience yet.  I have a pretty good feel for how long mail will take between when I send it and when the other person can mark it received, but I don't have that sense for cross-border.

Couldnt agree with this more. There's no way to know once the packages enter the nether world. And If you live in the state of New York, its even worse due to 9-11. I have a better time trading to Australia believe it or not than I do to Canada.

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

For me, it's costs and lack of a reliable way to provide tracking.

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

Nighthawk said it best. Having your cards enter the void and popping back into existence at a time completely unknown to you or the recipient can be unnecessarily stressful. Customs forms aren't horrible, just not ideal.

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

I've had many successful trades with Canada, but part of that was luck considering I didn't get tracking on any of them (due to the high cost).  The post office would use a stamp that costs $1.10 since it was just a flat envelope.  My luck ran out just recently, and neither of us received the other's package, so I decided not to risk it anymore.

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

All of my trades to Canada have been successful.  In fact, all of the few letters containing cards that I have sent to England, France, Australia, and the Philippines have arrived safely.  That being said, I wasn't able to purchase tracking for any of these letters due to prohibitive costs.  I had to wait until the cards arrived and would have not had any recourse should the receiver of the cards choose to say they didn't arrive and scam me.  Luckily, that did not happen, as people tend to be rather honest in this online community. 

The truth is, I can send cards to Canada, but rarely does anyone have a card that I can't get from a domestic trading partner.  Paypal shipping labels are 1.69 and come with free tracking.  Trading within the USA is much less risky. 

MOTL has a ton of Canadian traders.  You could try trading there.  http://forums.magictraders.com/Ultimate.cgi

Edit:  I should also add that insurance is very cheap for trades within the USA and I add it to all trades valued over $100.  Again, this feature is either prohibitively expensive or not avaliable when trading internationally.

Last edited by grossoggodeckbox (2013-09-18 15:26:19)

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

Canadian here.

Does a lot of this have to do with mistrust, not of your trading partner, but of the USPS? I drop my envelopes right at the post office to make sure all of the postage is correct, and to date I've never had an envelope go missing to anywhere in the world, including Europe and Australia. But in receiving envelopes, I've seen a huge variety of postages (between $1.10 and $6.50 for what appears to be the same thing), and from reading the forums here the belief that the package will be lost in transit is way higher.

Is this a "government can't do anything right" thing?

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Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

PhyrexianLibrarian wrote:

Does a lot of this have to do with mistrust, not of your trading partner, but of the USPS?

The USPS is actual one of the best in world. They are basically a private business owned by the government and are run that way.

For me the big thing is what a lot of people have said. The shipping cost. If the trade is big enough to warrant the cost, then it needs tracking. I am in the middle of a large trade to Germany right now and it cost me $9 to send, but $12 to track. My understanding is that tracking would cost the same no matter where out side of the US I am sending. So the cards I am trading for have to be VERY hard to find from someone in the US to make it worth it.

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

So I've only had one experience shipping to Canada:

I packaged everything in a bubble mailer. When I got to the post office, I just asked them how to best ship it to the address in Canada. They told me that they'd be able to give me a break and forego the forms and the additional expenses that would've come out to $6 to $7. So, the total was somewhere around $1.39. Wow!

Too good to be true? Yeah. It took a month to get the package to the destination. I was about a day away from buying the cards and shipping them again.

Now, I wouldn't want to pay the additional costs to ship it to Canada to begin with when I can trade to anyone in the US for $1.69. I tend to do trade in the $10 to $20 range, and adding $5 for shipping is just too large a percentage for each trade. Unfortunately, this happened because I didn't realize the trader was from Canada until after the trade had been established.

So, there were some mistakes made on my part, but to pay the extra $5 to ensure everything's chipper is too much for me to bother with the trade at all.

Hope this helps.

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

PhyrexianLibrarian wrote:

Canadian here.

Does a lot of this have to do with mistrust, not of your trading partner, but of the USPS? I drop my envelopes right at the post office to make sure all of the postage is correct, and to date I've never had an envelope go missing to anywhere in the world, including Europe and Australia. But in receiving envelopes, I've seen a huge variety of postages (between $1.10 and $6.50 for what appears to be the same thing), and from reading the forums here the belief that the package will be lost in transit is way higher.

Is this a "government can't do anything right" thing?

I think it's mostly a psychological thing, as there is more uncertainty and risk when you're trading across borders. USPS is a fine organization, but when you add more variables to the equation things become more complicated and generally not worth the effort.

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

Personally I do not count out Canada traders, but I can understand why many people do.  The cost of tracking to protect both buyer and seller and purely the amount of time it takes for a package to arrive to its destination are the two biggest factors.  I would think that any trade would want to do tracking no matter what, that way no one can get scammed. Also something to note now, filling out customs forms will give you a customs number which can be used to track the package big_smile takes a little time, but that means you can send a package to Canada with "tracking" and pay 7 bucks.

Re: USA traders, why do you count out Canada?

UnstableFlux wrote:

Tracking alone to canada costs $10-$15... hmm

This is the one thing that kills me in trading between the two countries.  I've had half a dozen trades into USA that I've wanted to put tracking on because of their value, but the tracking plus insurance works out to around $15.  Even on a $100 trade it's just too much, which is ridiculous.

In regards to others having issues with shipping times:  It's terribly unfortunate that those shipping times have been so long.  I guess I've been fortunate enough to not have any of my trades going to, or coming from America take longer than 2 weeks.

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