Payment of customs fees: seller in Canada, buyer in the US
Summary: citroen2cv83 initiated a discussion regarding the payment of customs fees for transactions between a seller in Canada and a buyer in the US, but did not provide further details or responses.
Hi!
I just started selling on eBay again (first time since a couple years), I'm in Canada and I'm now facing the issue of the end of the de minimis exemption, which I unfortunately hadn't heard about... I just sold my first item (an Acura car advertisement worth $18 CAD) to a buyer in the US.
When I arrived at the Canada Post office to ship my item, they explained that I have to prepay the customs fees via a third-party application (Zonos Prepay)...why didn't eBay inform me beforehand? I downloaded the application, filled out the form, and apparently the customs fees are $0. The application generated the 13-character customs code allowing Canada Post to ship the item and US Customs to process it (?), so the item was shipped to my buyer.
My questions are:
1) Is it normal for the customs fees to be $0? I thought all items crossing the border were now subject to customs fees? If so, what are the exact conditions?
2) Why am I having to pay customs clearance fees when they are usually the buyer's responsibility? I understand that eBay itself charges customs clearance fees when the order is placed? Did my buyer pay any fees at the time of ordering?
3) Is there a risk that my buyer will end up having to pay additional fees upon receiving their item, that they will refuse to pay these unexpected fees, and that the item will not be delivered?
4) On that note, I just saw online that sellers are advised to clearly state in their listings that customs fees may be charged to American buyers. Isn't that obvious? I'm looking at listings from several Canadian sellers on eBay for similar items, and none of them mention this.
5) I saw that eBay recently started offering an eBay International Shipping service, but I can't seem to access it when creating a listing. How can I offer this shipping service to my potential customers? Is it worthwhile?
I know that when you start selling on eBay it's quite difficult; there's this ridiculous SEO and algorithm issue that prevents my listings from being shown to potential buyers, so obviously I want my current buyer's buying experience to be as positive as possible to get a perfect feedback.
I spend a lot of time making the clearest and most well-structured listings possible, but so far it's barely worked. The increasingly exorbitant shipping costs certainly don't help either, and now they've added this issue of customs fees that I have to pay. I'm starting to get discouraged...
