Here you can read more information about shopping from Canada!
Canada is a relatively small market and many products available to the European or American consumer may not be available domestically. Prices might be comparable to what one may find in other mature markets. In particular when it comes to branded products. When price differences do occur they may be due to currency fluctuations rather than retailer and brand pricing differences. While one might think that shipping costs when shopping overseas are prohibitive due to the long distances in fact shipping costs are in fact very reasonable.
Since Canada has a special custom’s and duty agreement with the US through the NAFTA and due to the proximity and cultural similarities the most obvious is to shop in the USA. This situation may occur if a product is not available at home or simply in order to find a better price. Europe does offer a few additional challenges but it is not impossible to buy from Europe either.
Let’s take a look at the very basics of online shopping on a point to point basis.
Tax and fees: Sales Tax / Value Added Tax / import duty / processing fees
Canada has a rather low tax and duty free limit on imports.
If you want to make the exact calculation as to the total costs of getting a purchase from Europe into Canada please follow the link below:
http://www.dutycalculator.com/new-import-duty-and-tax-calculation/
The Canadian consumer can purchase upto 20 CAD $ worth of merchandise abroad without having to pay any tax, duty, fees etc. upon receipt. FOB (Free on Board) means that the calculation is made exclusively on the product and that shipping costs, insurance etc. are no included. The extra costs associated with a purchase overseas in terms of shipping, VAT, import duty, and fees of all three + processing fees often tips the balance in favor of going with a local retailer, finding a substitute or abstaining from purchasing due to elevated final costs. However, since the Canadian consumer will not have to pay VAT / sales tax abroad that may help since the European sales tax usually is 19 to 25% while the Canadian ditto is lower.
Gifts
An alternative to shipping a product as a standard purchase is the gift order. The limit on duty and tax free imports on gifts to Canada is 60 $ CAD. Not much but still better than when it comes to the direct business to consumer purchase. Furthermore the gift may go without an invoice making it difficult to determine the value of a product.
If you order as a gift make sure to let us know so that we can declare it as such and leave out the invoice.
The prices on our website are displayed without the Danish VAT (sales tax). We do not charge this tax on shipments for non-European Union countries. In case billing address is in Canada and delivery address is in the UK the Danish VAT of 25% is added. In case the delivery address is in Canada, US, Singapore, Australia etc. there will be no further charges.
Shipping Time and Costs
Shipping costs for Canada bound shipments are relatively low compared to the distance covered.
Delivery time varies and is of course longer than if an item was from a domestic retailer but even on standard shipping delivery time is manageable say with the exception of the most urgent of cases.
We have looked at delivery time on our standard shipping product which is provided by a combination of the Danish Post and the Canadian Post. The packages from Denmark take 1-2 days to arrive in Canada. The cargo plane lands in Mississauga, Toronto metro area. Once in Canada it takes a couple of days to get the packages through customs clearance. Even if they are not being declared they have to be cleared. Then the packages have to be sorted for domestic distribution. This may take a day or two as well. Finally the packages are delivered across the territory which adds another 1-2 days. The total of the process bring average delivery time to around 7-8 days from the time the package has been shipped from our warehouse in Denmark.
The only location in Canada where one may deduct a couple of days from the estimate above is Toronto. Other locations in Ontario take about the same time as for BC, Alberta etc. But Toronto itself is a bit faster typically around 5 days in the mail.
Price
We charge a flat fee of 10$ USD (11-12 CAD) for standard 7 days shipping to Canada.
DHL express shipping (2-3 days) is also available but at a considerable higher cost: 35-40 USD.
Track and Trace
Canada Post has a tracking feature on their website where the proceeding of the package can be followed:
http://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/track/personal/findByTrackNumber
The Danish national post: Post Danmark , has similar system though more limited in scope:
http://www.postdanmark.dk/en/tracktrace/Pages/home.aspx
Payment
Credit and Debit cards issued in Canada from international providers like MasterCard and VISA can easily be used when shopping in Europe.
If for some reason a payment is not accepted there may be several reasons for that.
One issue can be server time out. When having to connect to a server on another continent it might happen that response time is so long that the request times out and the process is aborted. One can try again or come back a bit later. Usually it is a very temporary problem.
At other times the customer may have VISA debit card but is not aware that is a debit card rather than a credit card and choose the payment option VISA credit. The opposite may also be the case. In that case the problem can be easily resolved simply by choosing the opposite type of card when choosing means of payment.
From US based customers we have heard that sometimes the bank having issued their card has imposed a limitation so that the card can only be used to make payments at home. This step has been taken to avoid credit card fraud but it is of course not very useful when the rightful owner of the card wishes to make a purchase from an international store. The bank can easily change the setting though.
Credit card companies charge a fee to the merchant (the seller) typically some 2-3% when it comes to international transactions. Some companies pass this charge onto the customer. In our case we incur this charge as the cost of doing business meaning that there will be no such charges once the final step of check out has been reached.
Currency
It is possible to pay in several currencies on our website. The charge to the card being used will be made in whatever currency the customer has chosen to pay in. If CAD is chosen the charge will be in Canadian Dollars. Is USD is chosen the charge will be in US Dollars.
The default dollar sign on the website $ refers to USD.
Returns
When shopping online especially when it comes to apparel and footwear one may choose the wrong size from time to time since even with a size chart at hand it can be difficult to know which size may be just right without having the opportunity to try it on in a physical store.
So an important aspect of the shopping experience is the returns process.
Please note! We do not accept returns of customized products which includes any product jersey, shorts, tops which have been printed with either a custom name or a player name / number or even just a number placed on the shorts.
So therefore if shopping for a customized product make sure you get the size right. Luckily enough the big brands like Adidas, Puma, Nike etc. tend to run the same sizing whether it be a normal t-shirt or a licensed product like a soccer jersey. So even if you cannot find the exact same Real Madrid jersey in the local store , if the store carries a regular Adidas jersey that is going to be similar in size. So it is possible to try on the products even at a distance though it does require a bit more work in the process.
For all other products we do accept returns for an exchange or a refund. The customer is responsible for shipping the product back to us and we will have to receive it in what is re-sellable condition.
If a refund is requested we will issue that as soon as the product has been received.
If an exchange is requested we will ship the new product back at no extra cost to the customer. We will inform the customer once the product has been received and when the exchange has shipped.
In case a product is faulty or if a product has been shipped incorrectly it is on us to get the mess sorted out. We will start on that once the customer has made us aware of the problem and that it has been established that there is in fact a problem and it is not merely a misunderstanding.
Customer Input & Feedback
This is the information in our possession. There might be a number of intricacies or other facts to know which we are unaware of. So if you have anything to add or any corrections do not hesitate to post below for us to learn and for others to be informed about.
Thank you!
