I order some Products from the United States.
The cost is $88 CAD.
There's a fixed international shipping cost of $48 CAD. Frustrating, but that is what the shipper has, so okay.
A couple days later, I get an email from UPS asking to pay the import duty fee. The import fee is $51 CAD.
That is more than half the cost of the product itself. I'm overall paying more for shipping+import fees than for the product.
When I moved here I assumed I could buy stuff from USA cheap because of NAFTA :(
An awkward thing about buying things mail order from USA in Canada is you don't actually wind up paying the import fee. Instead, the shipper has a "broker", who stands there at the border when the package passes over negotiates a reduced import fee. Then you pay the broker fee. As far as I know, this fee really is reduced *usually*. But it means you never have any idea how much import you'll be paying, and sometimes something bizarre like this (near 100% import duty) happens.
