Shipping option "Parcel One" temporarily disabled

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.

    Postal is the only reasonable way to get goods into Canada unless you are a medium or large business with a good broker contract. All of the couriers charge unreasonable fees to clear your goods through customs. Through postal service it is a moderate flat fee, regardless of the value. The couriers have a sliding scale, and charge according to value on top of number of items.


    They show up at your door with a big invoice and hold your goods hostage. Even if you try to clear the goods yourself, which you can do in person at any CBSA office with the right paperwork, they are unreasonable to deal with and often refuse to accept your paperwork timely. It's a racket they've gotten away with far too long, Most goods under $150 get cleared through postal with no fees, not even taxes. With the couriers you are looking at a $50 invoice for the same box.


    I would be happy to do paypal "send to friend" if you offer postal or parcel one again. I will also look into wise.com

    We do ship smaller (and cheaper) items with registered mail. More expensive items need to be fully insured, and that can't be done with registered mail (still waiting for answers from my DHL contact person about the new "Warenpost" that DHL/Deutsche Post have introduced).

    Deutsche Post/DHL are currently pushing the "Warenpost" option - I'm getting mailings (yes, real letters) almost weekly. It's essentially what Parcel One offers, just with fewer hops from one service company to another. Might still take six weeks to arrive overseas, so it's still a "not with PayPal"-option. If cost is your main concern, you'll be happy to know that money transfer with wise.com is cheaper than with PayPal, so you'll save on two ends.


    Not sure what's the catch on other things like "maximum insurance" - I may have to put a cap on the value of the contents.

    Took the time to read through the terms&conditions of "Warenpost international". The short version is: They suck.


    Long version: I need a new contract, which I can add to my existing DHL contract with a simple mouse click. However, I did not find any wording of the contract, only the information that there will be a new one if I click on "make new contract now". I don't have a way to view the contract before I agree to it. This is surely a mishap on the server admin's side, as such a contract is easily voided under German law. I did find a few answers in PDFs that are scattered across the DHL/Deutsche Post pages, and I assume that the majority of these terms is summarized in the contract that I can't review.


    The biggest no-go is the maximum insurance of 20,- EUR for the goods inside a parcel. We have very few products that would fall in that category, and I don't want to mess with yet another insurance to cover the difference. I looked into that two years ago, wasted lots of time communicating with an insurance company, only to find out that they attempted to sneak in "exclusion of smart phones, computers and associated parts" into a contract with a computer company, and they would not change that term.


    So the best way for you may be to use a proxy service, which has been suggested on this forum before. I have used a US-based proxy service myself, and that worked out very flawless. We ship within Germany for a bit over 7,- EUR per parcel with no weight or size limit (flat fee), and our shop system will let you enter an alternate shipping address. The biggest drawback will be that we'll have to charge the German VAT of 19%, and there's almost no way for the average non-EU customer to get that back.


    Sorry to say it, but UPS is definitely the best way. It's fast, reliable, and properly-priced if you take the high speed, VAT-free shipping and customs handling into account.

    Just wanting to purchase some small amiga components until I noticed that the shipping rates are more than the items I wish to purchase. I ship to the EU routinely without issues, why is it so costly?

    Where on the planet are you? It's true that we've disabled the economy shipping variants for non-EU destinations for resons explained numerous times in this thread. However, shipping within the EU is priced very competitively.

    Quote from jhubbard

    Just wanting to purchase some small amiga components until I noticed that the shipping rates are more than the items I wish to purchase. I ship to the EU routinely without issues, why is it so costly?

    I am from the USA. I have purchased many products in the past and have come to respect Individual Computers among the Amiga community. I will simply continue to wait until more reasonable shipping arrangements can be made. Thanks

    I have requested an offer from DHL express, as the "economy" variants all have the same problem of month-long delays that I have described so many times. Will be interesting to see if they have any advantage. Unfortunately, the guy on the phone (second guy, actually called me back after someone else took the company details and promised a callback - which actually happened, wow!) could not tell me how much the local DHL express entity will charge for handling imports - we still have that open question from Canadian customers who are (supposedly - still didn't see any confirmed figures) paying high fees to UPS for handling import paperwork.


    Note that DHL express uses the same colours and similar logo, but it's an entirely different business unit from Deutsche Post/DHL.

    DHL express is as bad as UPS for brokerage fees. Again a no go for Canada.


    Postal is really the only economical way to get goods into Canada. Parcel One partnered with postal which worked really well for us. So still hoping for Parcel One or postal option to be come available again.

    Here is the break down for an ACE2B shipped to Canada:


    32.77 eur (charged by icomp)

    40.93 eur (57.30 CAD charged by UPS for brokerage)

    4.29 eur (6.00 CAD charged by UPS for COD brokerage charge)

    = 77.99 eur for 1 ACE2B n shipping


    Parcel One = zero brokerage or extra fees at this end.

    So you're essentially asking for a way to avoid import fees? The 57.30CAD are surely some kind of import tax, VAT or whatever it's called. The 6 CAD for COD is way lower than what you'd pay for COD here in Germany (starts at 7.50 EUR). Interesting to see that UPS actually offers COD - I thought that all of North America uses "mostly credit cards".


    My expectation is that if you're importing goods with a postal service, you still have to pay the import tax. The fact that it's not caught by customs, just slips through, does not mean that you owe it to your government/state. It only means that the postal service is sloppy at catching these shipments.

    No - those fees are merely UPS charges for clearing items through customs. That is just for filing clearance paperwork. Completely unfair. Taxes are in addition to that !!! (which I always expect to pay)


    Most items under 150 eur get pushed through postal without any charges.


    ps - UPS charges the COD fee regardless of how you pay. Only way out of it is would be to setup an account.

    I paid the big UPS shipping charge and the extra $60 for fees and taxes well ahead of delivery and UPS decided not to deliver.


    After they failed to deliver according to the service standard, I contacted them.

    First they lied and said the receiver asked them to hold the parcel (I did not).

    They they lied and said the parcel was late through customs (but tracking showed it cleared at 3AM)

    Then they admitted they just didn't have the resources to deliver and decided to hold the parcel for at least an additional day.

    They also held another parcel I had coming from Texas that shipped Monday for overnight, its now two days late.


    I do not see the value in UPS service at this price point and the additional fees.


    I believe this shipment has exceeded the UPS service standard paid... it should have been two days.. the online tracker said so as well..

    I'd like my UPS shipping refunded.


    Thank you,

    Still hoping for a better shipping option than UPS. It would be great if we could go back to parcel one. I've got several things I'd like to order that exceed the value for postal. I just can't do UPS for the exorbitant costs.

    I do not in any way blame you for disliking the horribleness that is UPS. Pretty sure I know you IRL and you’re out ‘in the sticks’ UPS can not be a better experience for you, then it is for me being right in the major city. When you add up the total cost and factor in their terrible service it’s hard or impossible to justify.

    I am actively boycotting companies that only ship UPS into Canada now. Too much cost, too much headache. Out of the last 4 shipments it involved at least 2 phone calls each, and I still have an outstanding overcharge from them they promised to clear up. "We frown on brown"