Novak and Lollar's shipping cost - a bit high?

[lyair]

I've bought a set of Novak's JM pickups few months ago. The pickups are amazing but the shipping cost is a bit high.

I'm in Ontario Canada. Novak used Fedex international for the shipping and it cost 45 USD. Along with tax and Fedex's brokerage the total extra amount of these pickups is about 100 USD. I also checked Lollar's shipping cost, which is also over 40 USD through Fedex.

Now I'm going to buy a set of aftermarket Jaguar pickups and I still trust Novak's work. But the sipping cost makes me hesitate... I can get a set of Seymour Duncan Antiquity II at Darren with only 19 USD shipping cost(through USPS) and no waiting time.

Both Novak and Lollar are located at western US, and Darren is at eastern side. So at first I thought the high shipping cost is from the distance. But when I changed the address on their onlineshops, the shipping costs kept same.

So, is this high cost attributed to Fedex? Why these builders don't use USPS to ship a small package of pickups?

[GilmourD]

Unfortunately that's not something Novak can do anything about. The problem is how strangely expensive and complicated it is to ship across an imaginary line.

I operate a very, very small Reverb shop and get asked to ship to Canada all the time. It would actually cost me more to ship one piece from New Jersey to anywhere in Canada than for the customer to order a single piece directly from my supplier with no bulk discount and expedited delivery straight from China.

[crazyzeke]

Yeah I'll second this.

My ex, who lives in Montreal had a few online shops selling collectible figures and whatnot, as well as some local sales, and she was totally baffled/blindsided by this postal change at some point last year. Sadly especially on lower value items it means the shipping cost is high enough to stop people buying small value items under say 30-40 bucks, and since that was where a lot of her pieces were price wise her cool little side venture was essentially dead after she sold all the big items because USA buyers would just find the same things local to them, and the Canadian market for them is that much smaller.

If you're operating on slim margins it can kill a business, and anything that discourages entrepreneurialism (part of the foundation of capitalism/growth, after all) is something I fundamentally despise. I don't see why Canadians should be punished for the almighty crime that is shipping stuff in and out of Canada, to be honest.

[alexpigment]

USPS is even quite expensive from USA to Canada these days, but they're still much lower than FedEx or UPS. I think the benefit to using those latter services is that the seller is less likely to have to re-make/re-ship/refund a potentially expensive item if (when) it doesn't get delivered; that can happen on USPS's or Canada Post's side, and I've dealt with this quite a few times at my company. FedEx and UPS are end-to-end services, and there's some peace of mind that comes from that, even if it means putting the onus (and cost) on the customer willing to pay those rates. A larger business (like Seymour Duncan) will be trying to get its products to as many people as possible, and they can usually afford the losses when a problem arises.

As for the import taxes, you can thank the Canadian government for that one. I think it applies to anything over $20 in value, and then non-government couriers like FedEx, DHL, UPS, etc have a fee that they charge on top of that to handle paying those taxes for you. It's not worth it to a fairly established company to lie on the declared value, so really it just comes back to Canada asking too much of its citizens for paying import taxes.

[andy_tchp]

Why these builders don't use USPS to ship a small package of pickups?

Because they want their products to reach their customers.

Once the package has cleared customs this 'USPS' shipment is handed off to the local postal service. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing depends on which country you're in (and to some extent the competency of your local distribution centre). If there's a problem like damaged freight or a total loss good luck getting a satisfactory outcome.

Meanwhile the FedEx item gets scanned at every single transfer point - and probably got delivered to you in 2-3 days.

[GilmourD]

Meanwhile the FedEx item gets scanned at every single transfer point - and probably got delivered to you in 2-3 days.

Oddly enough, I've actually had issues with about 80% of my inbound FedEx shipments. The most consistently good ones, however, are when I have stuff shipped straight from China. Shows up in 3-4 days. Georgia to New Jersey? 10 days after sitting in one place for four. Four packages from Tennessee to NJ dropped off and scanned at the same exact time? Three of them made it within five days, completely destroyed. The fourth took an extra three days. All four had different tracking paths. I'd rather drive stuff across the country than ship FedEx these days. LOL

UPS has been pretty good to me.

[andy_tchp]

Meanwhile the FedEx item gets scanned at every single transfer point - and probably got delivered to you in 2-3 days.

Oddly enough, I've actually had issues with about 80% of my inbound FedEx shipments. The most consistently good ones, however, are when I have stuff shipped straight from China. Shows up in 3-4 days. Georgia to New Jersey? 10 days after sitting in one place for four. Four packages from Tennessee to NJ dropped off and scanned at the same exact time? Three of them made it within five days, completely destroyed. The fourth took an extra three days. All four had different tracking paths. I'd rather drive stuff across the country than ship FedEx these days. LOL

UPS has been pretty good to me.

Oh, wow! And ugh

Probably a different proposition here - FedEx are pretty much a premium/express/international carrier for the most part, same as DHL and UPS (though DHL have started handing off residential consignments to Australia Post for delivery, who can be a mixed bag).