Bartertown.com

Hi all. I don't if this should go here but seemed the right place. The thing is I'm on a verge of completing a trade for some Reaper dwarfs which are in Canada and I will send my minis from Croatia.
The thing that bothers is that some 3 months ago I sent some minis for another trade in Canada that never arrived to my counterpart. I ask from time to time about them and he says that they still haven't arrived and that he thinks they are stuck in Canadian customs and that he is also waiting for minis from the US to arrive that he also thinks are stuck in customs. I don't think that my counterpart is doing something wrong as he has a rather good reputation here.
The minis for my new trade are all metal and their shipping cost isn't small and I don't want to get in a situation where they don't arrive again. So I was wondering if anyone knows if there is something going on with Canadian customs that the parcels get stuck with them? Any info or personal experience would be welcome.
Thanks for your time.

It's not impossible that they are delayed in customs; did you have any means of tracking?

It does seem slightly improbable that the same user has two packages from two different senders in two different countries in customs at the same time.

I have bought items of various sizes, prices and weights from various places on this earth and sent to Canada (and I mean from almost every place lol). The longest I have ever waited on customs clearing a package was a week during Christmas, the longest delivery time I have experienced was almost 45 days! That being said, in all my many international transactions I have never lost a package in the mail.
Hope that helps,

I have traded here, and bought and sold items from other forums. Lots of transactions. I have sent uninsured and insured packages to international locations. I also know that sending a package with a tracking number is sometimes more than the value of the parcel contents. The decision about tracking and insurance vs proof of shipping or receipt are someting that you have to consider.

How did you ship your part of the trade? Airmail or surface? Delivery time for surface will probably be 6 weeks minimum, plus processing time. Airmail should be prompter.

Ask your postal service how they ship to Canada. Sometimes the postal service will hold Air Mail in your country until they can fill a container. Then ship the container to the destination country. The delay to fill the container will depend on the volume of mail. CanadaPost does this to some countries.

International shipping and trading takes longer, and there is some uncertainty due to shipping. The parcel may arrive, but handling may damage the item. In my experience, if an international package took longer than 2 months to arrive, I never received the package. Some people go to great lengths to defraud others for their miniatures. Some people will claim an item has not arrived, as a way to scam (defraud) others. This has happened to me a few times, on single miniatures. Buyer claimed that they did not receive the miniature.

Some Canadians will refuse to accept a package if they have to pay an import fee. It is not a duty, just sales tax plus a $5.00 handling fee. Depending on your shipper, if the package is refused it may not be returned to you.

Hope my input helps you. Good luck with your transaction.

My most disputed areas: Russia, Australia, and Japan. Delivery times to these areas exceed one month, and sometimes two complete months. Even using air mail. I have not used priority to these locations because that service is too costly versus value of the package.

I have had to wait up to 3 weeks for a package to clear customs from the US.

There is a really good thread on Btown here detailing how to ship to Canada, the link is in my signature.

optimusprime14 wrote:I have had to wait up to 3 weeks for a package to clear customs from the US.

WOW, when was this and what [if I may ask] did you order? I have never had to wait that long for customs ever

I've sent packages to Canada on more than one occasion that took in excess of a month for delivery.
I had a package once that took THREE MONTHS to reach Hawaii. This was due to the fact that I shipped it (books) via media mail.
Americans; NEVER SHIP TO HAWAII OR ALASKA VIA MEDIA MAIL. LOL

Ungrim, if you're having issues with Canadian shipments, you might consider using some sort of tracked shipment.

Eric

3eland wrote:

optimusprime14 wrote:I have had to wait up to 3 weeks for a package to clear customs from the US.

WOW, when was this and what [if I may ask] did you order? I have never had to wait that long for customs ever

It was a trade here on Btown for some 40K stuff

Thank you all for your feedback and information. It was very helpful.
I sent the previous package via regular mail and it wasn't tracked. If I used tracked shipping the cost of shipping would have skyrocketed through the roof. The minis simply weren't worth that much.
I'll give it some more time and we'll see what comes out of it.
I'm encouraged that this seems like a very unlikely situation and it encouraged me not to shun Canada for trade

Ungrim wrote:*Snip*....
I'm encouraged that this seems like a very unlikely situation and it encouraged me not to shun Canada for trade

That's great news! People seem to have some sort of nightmarish dilemma when shipping to us igloo living, poutine eating Canadians .
Hope all works out for you!