This is advice for Canadians, so if you aren't from Canada carry on, nothing to see here... :-)
Well everything but the shipping info applies to other people I suppose.
Canada PostGet a Venture One card. If you aren't a business, just say you are a home based business and get one anyway (make up a business name if you want (
Heywood Jablome Exports is already taken...). It saves you 5% on shipping and it opens up other domestic shipping options such as Expedited Parcel. (A shipping option that is cheaper than XpressPost, only 1 day slower than XpressPost while being cheaper than regular ground parcel and twice as fast as regular ground parcel.) It doesn't cost you anything and it saves your shipee a few bucks here and there.
Talk to your local Post Office staff, ask questions, get all the forms ahead of time. The ones you will use the most often are: White CN22 Small Packet Customs Slips, Expedited Parcel - USA forms, and occasionally VCP72 customs declaration forms.
The bus does what?Within Canada the bus (
Bus Express / Greyhound) is a really cheap and amazingly fast way to ship large or heavy items (such as a monitor or a 3000T). It's insurable up to $1,000, it's fast (2 days from SK to BC, 3 days to anywhere in ON from SK -- the buses run 24/7 all across Canada), it's trackable, and it's cheaper than any courier service or mail. It's just not as convenient because you have to deliver it to the bus and the buyer has to pick it up from the bus. They also don't toss the packages around because the loading height of the bus is 1 foot off the ground.
You require the buyer's phone number if you intend to use this shipping method.Shipping to the USADon't use UPS and FedEx when possible. Expedited USA from Canada Post is price competitive, it's trackable, it's insurable (up to $1000), and it's less of a pain in the butt. You only have one form to fill out, you don't need to complete radiation forms, certification forms, country of origin forms, and you don't have to buy extra clear document pouches for your boxes etc.
Here again your Venture One card saves you 5% on all Expedited USA shipments (as well as XpressPost or Purolator Courier shipments to the USA). For smaller items, and to buyers you aren't worried about getting ripped off by, you can use Canada Post's Small Packet Air or Small Packet Ground options. They're both insured for $100 and are pretty fast (they are not trackable online though, and you do not get a V1 discount for small packet shipments).
FedEx & UPS: Once you get a FedEx account set up those bastages will bill you in Canadian dollars and then charge your credit card in US DOLLARS so you get screwed on the exchange and then you get screwed on an extra fee on your card, and you can't talk common sense to the people at FedEx on the phone who try to reason that it's the same thing "We billed you $39 and we charged your card $39 sir" (Yes, but would you be saying the same thing about 50 shipments you billed me $39 US each for and I then paid you with 39 Canadian dollars for each shipment you stupid cow?)... UPS Ground will literally throw your items on the front steps of your shipee's home, in the middle of the day, from 10 feet away, and not even ring the doorbell to say "oh your $450 package is here by the way"... FedEx ground is the same way, they are all independently owned and operated trucks (ground, not the main FedEx or UPS) and they don't appear to give a rat's arse about your packages. There are also people who work at UPS who like to steal from you, I've had entire systems "vanish" from warehouses in-transit only to turn up a week later opened and obviously used... Gosh I wonder how that happened. I've also had packages just vanish, sure I get my insurance back but I also get one irate person in the US or Canada who thinks I'm yanking their chain (it can take 90 to 180 days, or longer, to actually get your refund/insurance from any courier company).
Shipping InternationallySmall Packet Air and Small Packet Ground are really economical methods of shipping overseas. They are not trackable but they are insured for $100 (you can also "trick" Canada post into making a package trackable by adding $1 worth of extra insurance on it, you'll then have a sticker on the package and a receipt that shows that number). FedEx Ground International is a pretty good method of heavy items (anything over 5kg is cheaper by FedEx Ground, anything under is cheaper by Canada Post).
Airmail (including packages) is 2-4 weeks, ground is literally by ship and can take up to 8 weeks (that's 2 months!). Both are trackable but only to certain countries. They are both cheap methods to ship overseas compared to most courier services however. It all depends on what you are shipping, and how much investment you're willing to risk. If you're shiping a $100+ item and you're not feeling 100% safe about your buyer, use FedEx Ground or UPS Expedited.
Use PayPalPayPal is fairly decent in protecting buyers and sort of ok in protecting sellers. Their fees are ok if you aren't doing tens of thousands of dollars in online sales (in that case talk to Moneris and get a merchant account of your own, it will save you money). Buyers are now used to using PayPal and for the most part trust it, so it's a pretty good method of getting paid online for your products or services.
But be smart. Apply for the extra services by getting verified and then "PayPal Preferred" status. You get a PayPal Check Card (MasterCard) which allows you to pull your money out at any ATM or use as a credit card online or offline (and get 1.5% cash back, it pays for some of your fees to use it this way). You also avoid the $3 fee if your withdrawl is under $100 US (you can take up to $400 US per day with your check card).
Don't leave a big balance in your PayPal account, PayPal still is known to lock PayPal accounts "on a whim"... You could have $1,000 in your PayPal account and have one person dispute a $5 item and PayPal will freeze your entire account! They are not a bank and they set their own rules for the most part, even after being slapped around by the US courts. It is a long and arduous process to get your PayPal account unlocked -- I once got paid $2100 by my attorney in New York for a service contract and PayPal froze my account right after I paid for a new cell phone ($320) and withdrew $400 of it at an ATM because they said it was "suspicious large transaction activity" -- 8 faxes, 6 proofs of identity, and one angry letter from my attorney in NY later I got my money unlocked... took 9 days. That was the last time I used PayPal for anything other than eBay or small products or services.
Don't use a bank account that has a lot of money in it either. It's worth it for you to go set up a new bank account just for PayPal, all you need is $100 to open a new bank account at any Canadian bank. This avoids having PayPal mysteriously pull $500 from your bank account to cover some bogus chargeback or dispute (they will point to their terms of service which you agree to as 'authorization' to take funds from your bank account should you dispute it with them). An even better idea is to go to your TD Canada Trust or Royal Bank (or BoM) and open a US Based bank account (not a US dollars account). By opening a US bank account you can then transfer money from your PayPal account to your US bank with no fees (instead of $3 to transfer money to your Canadian account). You will also get a bank card from your US bank you can use at any ATM in Canada or as a VISA/MC at any store.
If you want to know the cheapest bank account you can get in Canada, one that actually pays you to put money in (with no monthly service fees) get an ING bank account. You can get 2% interest with a basic ING account and utilize it exclusively through ATMs and online banking. They're fantastic with 1-800 support as well.
The Customer is Always RightExcept many of them have no concept of time.
You can sell something at 6PM on a Friday and in your buyer's mind that's day one and Monday is day four (even though Monday is actually day zero...) In Canada, the post offices are open 7 days a week, but only move items from Monday to Saturday (yes, you can ship something at 11AM Saturday and it will quite often actually not only leave your local post office but go through your local sorting plant and onto a truck or plane across Canada). But even still the weekend does not count as 2 days to any shipping service except for really really expensive ones.
Smart buyers understand that a week is actually 5 days plus two empty days that don't count and quite often your shipments on a Saturday will take 2 days off their expected shipping time -- 5 business days actually turn into 3. (In the words of Scotty,
"How else do you think I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?")...
Communicate with your buyer. Email them every step of the way, it not only is nice to be on the receiving end of this extra information it also makes your life a lot easier to keep track of a large volume of shipments if you have emails to go along with everything.
Shipped something? Well when you get back home or to your office go through your receipts and forms and email each one of them, it takes you about 3 or 4 minutes per slip and once that is done you have an electronic record of your tracking numbers and info to fall back on if something goes missing in transit (and it does!).
Get the Phone NumberFor domestic and US shipments get a phone number. Include it on the package. US Customs regulations now require a telephone number on the package for shipments originating in Canada (and also from Europe although that's not enforced yet) -- while quite often your package will get through customs anyway (especially if they're busy) you will eventually get one returned to you on your dime. You then get to pay shipping a third time and get your package to your buyer a week or two (or more) late...
The phone number on shipments within Canada means Canada Post (or a courier service) can get ahold of somebody if they have a package waiting. Canada Post will drop off a card, then again after 3 days another card, then after 7 days if it is not picked up they will call the number, then after 3 more days they will return it to you. A courier such as FedEx or UPS will leave a delivery attempt card two days in a row and also try to call the recipient after the first attempt.
If your buyer doesn't want to give a phone number that should be an alarm bell that they intend to rip you off, are using a stolen credit card, or are just one of those "big brother is watching me" nutbars. :-)
Be a smart PackerDon't throw out boxes, and learn how to turn boxes inside out! A Motherboard box, or a soundcard box, or a video card box, (etc.), is always designed so the flaps fold over each other and lock into a hole in the bottom (they almost never use glue). You can unlock that flap and turn the entire box inside out -- you now have a nice clean shipping container that is plain brown or white and doesn't scream "Hey steal me!" if it's left in somebody's mailbox.
Keep packing foam from everyone you meet (lol). Packing foam is expensive for a throw away item so anytime you get something that comes with nice styrefoam sheets keep it. Same goes with bubblewrap -- it's $19 for a 65 foot roll from Staples. That sounds cheap until you realise that you're spending $1 to $4 per box to ship something! The flat sheets of styrofoam that come with tables and glass items are excellent to cut into shapes to make your items you ship fit perfectly and avoid any damage. I've shipped stuff to just about everywhere in the world and I've never had a single broken shipment yet -- while many packages I get shipped to me were packed up by untrained monkies and arrive damaged -- Vesalias and Amiga France included (two companies I like).
If you can't find a supplier for protective shipping products (including antistatic polywrap, antistatic bubblewrap, etc) you can start with
Chiswick as they carry everything and their prices are competitive with most other sources I've found in Canada. At worst it will give you a really good source to get product names and terms for searching other sources on google.
Get good tape. Yeah, you can save a buck or two here and there buying 6 and 8 pack rolls of noname crap (such as the clear tape from Staples) but it doesn't stick to anything. Don't buy tape from the Post Office either, it's 10x overpriced. Grab one roll of cardboard tape when you're buying your clear packing tape, it makes your packages way stronger and a couple zips of regular clear tape over the top means its sealed until a human cuts it open (or an impact with a mountainside). Don't buy bubble mailers from the Post Office they're 5-10x overpriced too! Buy your bubble mailers from WalMart ($0.46 for a small mailer that costs $1.99 at the post office makes the trip worth while to stock up). And don't be afraid to talk to somebody in WalMart about other shipping envelopes -- when I inquired as to why they didn't carry larger mailers they said "Oh I didn't know people wanted them". My local Walmart now has 12 different bubble mailers in stock and usually 20+ of each at all times (thanks to me asking). They want your money, tell them what you want and they'll get it (and it'll be cheaper than anyone else in town).
Package everything like it's going to get broken in transit (meaning pack it well or over-pack it). You do NOT get insurance against breakage from any courier. You only get loss insurance (if they break it in transit they will tell you that you didn't pack it well enough -- if you mark it fragile and pack the heck out of it and they break it they will say that you knew it was a breakable item so it doesn't get insurance. All couriers, as well as Canada Post and USPS, will come up with any conclusion they can to avoid paying you for a broken item in transit.
Use printed labels -- printed labels get your packages to their destination faster than hand written ones (some people scoff at this but it's true -- most of the packages are sorted electronically by computer and the ones the scanners can't read get shoved aside for a human to sort later on). You can buy a 320 label package (2"x4" 10 per sheet) from Staples for nine bucks. It's easy to set up in Word (they're Avery 5163/8163 labels except they cost 10% as much) and then print them with your laser or inkjet. Yes, you will have to also hand write the customs forms or shipping forms, but the printed label is what the post office and carrier will want to read -- the other form is for the customs people to briefly look at to make sure it's on there (plus if your handwriting isn't nice and clear they have a nice printed label to compare it to).
Just some advice from a monkey who has shipped around 1,000 packages in Canada, thrice that to the US and about 500 around the globe. Yeah, it's a long post, but I worked on it while getting packages ready to ship here. :-)
