We recently had 2 separate shipments on a single order from Aliexpress (two different vendors). The purchase and shipping was prepaid, one arrived with no customs or delivery taxes due (strange, but not gonna argue), and the other was like most of our parcel post from US to Canada - custom import duties when applicable and local sales taxes due COD. When it's by UPS, the brokerage fee on small value shipments can exceed all the taxes, and sometimes even the goods.
Same over here. Our own national postal company rarely does this with low cost stuff but the market was "opened" and foreign companies entered. DHL is terrible with their intimidating letters and extra fees. UPS is like that. For this reason I choose the cheapest shipping option and my packets are then delivered by our own national post company (which gives them work and helps my own people). Any US company charges extra fees. Why ? It his certainly not only VAT taxes they charge. Is this a kind of game ? How to fool customers ? To keep "stock holders" happy ? My experiences are that they don't offer anything extra compared to the classic postal companies maybe except for very fast delivery but I would prefer lower cost to 1 day less time.
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damuffin - FWIW of the big three from which we have to choose when the option is offered on international shipments, we find FEDEX the least usurious and equal if not superior in service to the other two named
For domestic shipments, Purolator randomly exercises the delightful prerogative of assessing "special handling" ($14 to not throw a box of epoxy glue cartridges against the wall) or "corrected (cubic) weight charges - as in $100+ freight on a 4ft long x 16" square box with single sheet of plastic laminate - IOW a box of mostly air, weighing maybe 20 lbs. On a really lucky day, they'll stack both charges on the same package.
Other than that they're pretty decent to work with on a daily basis, and have a reasonably user friendly tracking system to confirm location of lost packages in a multi-piece shipment - sorry, just one of my pet peeves, back to your regularly scheduled programming .
For domestic shipments, Purolator randomly exercises the delightful prerogative of assessing "special handling" ($14 to not throw a box of epoxy glue cartridges against the wall) or "corrected (cubic) weight charges - as in $100+ freight on a 4ft long x 16" square box with single sheet of plastic laminate - IOW a box of mostly air, weighing maybe 20 lbs. On a really lucky day, they'll stack both charges on the same package.
Other than that they're pretty decent to work with on a daily basis, and have a reasonably user friendly tracking system to confirm location of lost packages in a multi-piece shipment - sorry, just one of my pet peeves, back to your regularly scheduled programming .
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