Canadians Dealing with CBSA and the tariff tax they imposed on sideshow.

[COI]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nice Guy

I think we need to find a loophole. Please give suggestions.

Buy regulars from Canadian sellers. That's the only 'above board' strategy I can think of. Or sell stuff you bought when the currency was stronger and use that profit to fund stuff.

Maybe the smartest (but most difficult) is just to not buy until our currency bounces back a little.

[ComicJesus]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nice Guy

I think we need to find a loophole. Please give suggestions.

I have a friend in the US who receives packages for me. Then he sends them here with fudged numbers "on accident". I'm trying to avoid this nowadays as it's a lot of work for him. Tend to save only a little as well here because have to pay for shipping twice.

You can try out some US address receiving companies and pick up the items in the US yourself and then bring them over. They generally charge 10$ per item and you can pick it up at your convenience. It seems like someone here has had a good experience with one of these places before and posted a link.

Ordering from toysonfire or toys2 and just accepting that you aren't getting the EX if it's not worth it.

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by COI

Buy regulars from Canadian sellers. That's the only 'above board' strategy I can think of. Or sell stuff you bought when the currency was stronger and use that profit to fund stuff.

Maybe the smartest (but most difficult) is just to not buy until our currency bounces back a little.

Thats the strategy I would use. If there is an absolute must have piece, like Red Sonja was for me, then you can buy one here or there, but as a whole I would just put my statue collecting on hold until the currency bounced back or Sideshow, or whatever other statue company you like buying from, was able to figure our some way of alleviating some of those fee's.

I understand it might be very difficult especially if your really into statue collecting, but just think how much farther your money will go on things that don't require those sorts of fee's. Myself, I would just save the money if I didn't have any other hobbies that I could partake in that didn't require those sorts of fee's. That way if your curreny ever does bounce back, you will have a nice big stack of cash ready to spend on whatever statues you want. I absolutely love collecting statues, but no way would I be paying those kinds of fee's. I would definitely take the save and wait approach, hoping for a day when your current is more on par with the US dollar.

[gates70]

I stopped collecting a while ago because of high prices, so I can't imagine ever wanting to get back into it with these "premium taxes". Such a put-off.

[COI]

Originally Posted by OrangeCrush

Thats the strategy I would use. If there is an absolute must have piece, like Red Sonja was for me, then you can buy one here or there, but as a whole I would just put my statue collecting on hold until the currency bounced back or Sideshow, or whatever other statue company you like buying from, was able to figure our some way of alleviating some of those fee's.

I understand it might be very difficult especially if your really into statue collecting, but just think how much farther your money will go on things that don't require those sorts of fee's. Myself, I would just save the money if I didn't have any other hobbies that I could partake in that didn't require those sorts of fee's. That way if your curreny ever does bounce back, you will have a nice big stack of cash ready to spend on whatever statues you want. I absolutely love collecting statues, but no way would I be paying those kinds of fee's. I would definitely take the save and wait approach, hoping for a day when your current is more on par with the US dollar.

Yeah, I hear you. I'm going back and forth on this. The problem with waiting is, the only thing that can change is our currency. The drastic increase is due to the perfect storm of a weak currency + the prices these companies are charging + increased shipping and customs, and the latter two probably won't get any better, ever. And it's very likely our currency won't bounce back any time soon. Sadly, this is more the norm than an exception, historically speaking. It just so happens we enjoyed extremely good rates for several years, which coincided with this hobby's explosion and occurred at a time when PFs were $300. When I started this hobby back in the early 2000s, our currency was weak then too, but the average statue was $100-$150, shipping rates were reasonable, and the GSP didn't exist so the after-market on Ebay was actually viable.

Hopefully I'm wrong, but I don't see this getting better any time soon. I think we just have to deal with that decrease in buying power, and that's that. I still want to enjoy the hobby.

[Mar-l-Aoutat]

Originally Posted by Dreamland

I want to order the bioshock gaming heads Rosie statue at $600 US. To get it to my door it's around $1252 Canadian.

Here are the calculations:

Start at $600 US
Quoted Shipping from Gaming Heads is $195 US !! ($795)
Exchange at 1.31 ($1041)
Duty and Taxes 13% ($1176)
New 6.5% Tax ($1252)

So a $600.00 US statue to get to my door in Toronto is over DOUBLE the price, $1252.00

I guess you absolutely want the exclusive, right?
I never bought directly from Gaming Heads. Their shipping charges are monstrous.

Since there is no canadian retailer, when it comes to GH products, I buy from Europe. Of course, you can't get exclusives, but it is a lot cheaper.
The two cheapest stores I found are Toy-Palace (german shop) and Figurine collector (french shop).
Shipping is cheap. A flat 42 euro with colissimo from the french shop and a flat 33 euro with DHL from the german shop. No matter how big the package is.
Then, with the euro being really weak now, items aren't that expensive, plus when you checkout with a non-european adress, the 19% VAT is waived from your purshase.
So, basically, you get 19% off all their items.

You will have to pay the PST and GST/HST on delivery, but for now I didn't had any duty to pay, since I was able to have my items classified as figures/toys (even my 1/4 scale statues).

I never bought from Toy-Palace but I bought from figurine collector and had a good experience with them.
Here are the links to the Rosie statue from each shop:
http://www.toy-palace.com/en/big-dad...ite-53-cm.html
http://www.figurine-collector.fr/bio...hock&results=5

If you buy from Toy-palace make sure to get their 10% member discount card first. You'll get an extra 10% off everything in their store.


Just a quick calculation - From figurine collector:
Price of the item for non-EU residents: 449,17 € - about $634 CAD
Shipping: 42,00 € - about $60 CAD
Duty and Taxes 13% + Canada post handling fee: 74,40 € - about $105 CAD
TOTAL = $799 CAD
MAN, YOU ARE SAVING UP 453$ CAD!!!

That's crazy, isn't it?

[Mr. Nice Guy]

So I'm researching and found these guys

http://crossborderpickups.ca/cross-b...U54aAq1e8P8HAQ

Apparently this is a thing and ppl are using it all the time. I suppose this means that as Canadian citizens we could benefit from the free US shipping options. I was advised that we would pay in American dollars and at the same time avoid cross border charges.

[HeavyMetalSpike]

Can everyone PLEASE keep politics out of this thread.

The last one was shut down for just that reason.

.

[Bowen or Bust]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nice Guy

So I'm researching and found these guys

http://crossborderpickups.ca/cross-b...U54aAq1e8P8HAQ

Apparently this is a thing and ppl are using it all the time. I suppose this means that as Canadian citizens we could benefit from the free US shipping options. I was advised that we would pay in American dollars and at the same time avoid cross border charges.

Interesting, has anyone here ever used this.

[PureInvasion]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nice Guy

So I'm researching and found these guys

http://crossborderpickups.ca/cross-b...U54aAq1e8P8HAQ

Apparently this is a thing and ppl are using it all the time. I suppose this means that as Canadian citizens we could benefit from the free US shipping options. I was advised that we would pay in American dollars and at the same time avoid cross border charges.

That's actually really tempting...
Mississauga is only 45 min away from me (much easier than going across the border)