I’m looking to sell/trade a number of throws from my collection, but being in Canada shipping to the States is a bit daunting/costly. As of right now, the cost to profit ratio especially on less expensive throws doesn’t seem worth it for me to try to sell or trade throws on the BST.
Anyone here from Canada (or anywhere) have any advice from experience with shipping? One thing I was thinking is going down to the states to ship, as I live about half an hour away from the border. I’m not sure…
Not Canadian here. As a frequent buyer on the BST I think as long as you’re transparent about the cost of shipping, most folks wouldn’t mind. On less expensive throws you may list them as add-ons only purchasable outside of Canada if a certain amount of other throws are also purchased.
You could also just limit your BST post to Canada at first and see what kind of bites you get.
I ship to people in the eu and Canada a bit and the extra cost for shipping is roughly $10 for basic Shipping. Traveling to the US to ship seems like a pain to me but if you want to go through with that power to you.
You could look into Chit Chats (https://chitchats.com) which seems like a Canadian service kind of like Pirate Ship. Luftverk uses it for their shipping and it gets prices down to about $10 USD for the customer, better than the ~$15 it seems to be otherwise. Might be worth looking into before dedicating time to crossing the border to ship.
I also agree that as long as you’re upfront about the shipping costs most people don’t seem to mind even if it’s a bit more expensive.
Canada Post retail rates are more expensive than USPS I’ve found, $15 is the most common amount I’ve seen.
Thanks! This might be the sort of thing I was looking for.
Thanks to other replies as well, I’ll probably factor in a shipping cost then. Appreciate yall
I’ve had one instance of buying from a Canadian which went well for the advertised price which I felt was fair at the time. I had an occasion where a guy from Canada wanted to buy what I offered. As I normally only ship in the US I asked if he would pay the extra shipping. He did. On another occasion I signed up for the secret santa one year and drew a guy in Australia. Took a bath on that and never participated again.
Yes the shipping is a bit pricy. That’s why I tried to sell my throws as bundle so I don’t have to pay shipping separately.
Canada Post offers a small business card that gives you discounts on parcels. You can apply online and use it either online or at the postal office.
Lathed Back design uses chit chat as well. It was decently fast to Europe and not exorbitant in price. (Also didn’t have to pay import duties which is rare).