DannyS
01-04-2005, 02:29 AM
Just after Christmas we had three registered mail shipments returned by the Canadian customs for “Insufficient Documentation”. They were from three different web sites, two were cheap body jewelry and one was books. With the books especially, the cost of the postage hurts us quite badly.
With courier shipments we have always found the Canadian customs to be a pain, in fact worse than many third world countries where you expect to have bureaucratic red-tape, but this is the first time we have had the problem with small packs in registered post.
For our books shipments we always use the international C-22 green customs label on the outside of the pack. For the body jewelry we don’t as the cost is so low and we are just packing in small padded envelopes. For both we have a sales receipt inside.
We are stopping shipments to Canada so it joins Nigeria and Indonesia on our banned list. Russia and the Balkans have been taken on the list so it’s a very select group. I have been looking for a reason why Canada should be like this. At first I thought that maybe it’s an indirect import restriction and that as we in Thailand are not part of NAFTA we are virtually banned. I searched on the web and found that there was a five week delay on the customs giving shipments to the Canadian post office. See http://www.canadapost.ca/business/corporate/about/newsroom/pr/default-e.asp?prid=1026. Is it just a way for the customs officials to clear their own backlog by pushing the shipments back into the international postal system?
I suspect that Canada does quite well in ecommerce export. One just has to look at the number of online pharmacies aimed at the US market, so it’s rather unfair that Canada should use such third world methods to stop goods flowing in the other direction.
Danny
With courier shipments we have always found the Canadian customs to be a pain, in fact worse than many third world countries where you expect to have bureaucratic red-tape, but this is the first time we have had the problem with small packs in registered post.
For our books shipments we always use the international C-22 green customs label on the outside of the pack. For the body jewelry we don’t as the cost is so low and we are just packing in small padded envelopes. For both we have a sales receipt inside.
We are stopping shipments to Canada so it joins Nigeria and Indonesia on our banned list. Russia and the Balkans have been taken on the list so it’s a very select group. I have been looking for a reason why Canada should be like this. At first I thought that maybe it’s an indirect import restriction and that as we in Thailand are not part of NAFTA we are virtually banned. I searched on the web and found that there was a five week delay on the customs giving shipments to the Canadian post office. See http://www.canadapost.ca/business/corporate/about/newsroom/pr/default-e.asp?prid=1026. Is it just a way for the customs officials to clear their own backlog by pushing the shipments back into the international postal system?
I suspect that Canada does quite well in ecommerce export. One just has to look at the number of online pharmacies aimed at the US market, so it’s rather unfair that Canada should use such third world methods to stop goods flowing in the other direction.
Danny