Long-time customers know we have struggled to ship our products directly to Canada. It’s been an on-again, off-again situation without any solution that makes Canadian customers happy and keeps us from burning money.
As some of you have noticed, Canadians can now order books and other products through our website, but the shipping costs are steep. The service we use is FedEx International Economy, which is the only way we avoid brokerage fees when bringing parcels across the border.
We know it’s expensive, but that is the actual cost. Books are both heavy and bulky, which prevents us from using USPS Flat Rate boxes and other services.
For those Canadians who don’t want to pay that price (and we cannot blame you), we recommend you buy your Lost Art Press books through Lee Valley Tools. They carry about everything we publish. Type “lost art press” into the search field and you’ll see all 28 products come up. Shipping there is reasonable because Lee Valley is big enough to move products back and forth across the border. We aren’t.
Very shortly, Lee Valley will start selling “Shaker Inspiration,” and you’ll be able to order it from them with a reasonable shipping fee.
So why offer the shipping to Canada? To ensure that our northern neighbors can order products that Lee Valley might not carry, such as bandanas and chore coats.
We wish we had a magic wand to make shipments to Canada easy and inexpensive. But we don’t.
So that cut’s us from the pdf and all…
I think that i am going to migrate in Kentucky.
Can’t you send by USPS ?
USPS is only marginally cheaper. The small Flat Rate box is $25 to urban areas (and it won’t even fit one of our small books). The large Flat Rate box is more than $60. John has devoted hundreds of hours to cracking this nut. It’s just not an option for a micro business like us.
Ok. I understand. Same problem with Tenon&Mortise Mag…
It doesn’t come up in a search for ‘lost art press’ but Lee Valley also has The Intelligent Hand.
Lee Valley Item 20L0353
I don’t know your issue but I buy a lot of books, antiques, tools, clothes etc and I always specify USPS because the brokerage fee is negligible and it gets handed over to Canada Post who collect HST and deliver it to your door. Never had a problem with the package being broken versus all the others who charge outrageous fees and manage to mangle the package and or make you drive all over town to pick it up. Am I missing something?
Hi Steve,
We have had lots of problems with USPS and Canadian shipping. The Canadian customer declines the shipment when the duty is charged. The package then goes to a dead letter office. And the customer reports the shipment never arrived. So we send it again….
Sounds like the problem is a lack of information as to what a Canadian has to pay. Duty (not much) and sales tax is a given. What is not a given is outrageous brokerage fees.
agree.
Gorgeous map – from what time period is the red border?
On the shipping front, I get it. I’m just glad that Lee Valley is such a great supporter of Lost Art Press and other small tool and book makers. Bravo Mr. Lee!
The red border is just a proposal. From the beginning, Canadians have wanted to build a wall to keep us out.
Hi John,
Some days I post a blog entry just to read your comment on it.
Aww, shucks. Putting aside all of the wonderful knowledge I’ve acquired here, I’m always entertained. Its nice to pay a wee bit back.
Thank you very much for making direct shipping available to Canada once again! Whenever possible, I want to support a business directly rather than go through a middle-man company.
Lee Valley certainly tries to keep all the Lost Art Press books in stock that they can, but for items like the Chore Coat, I am happy to have the option to pay for direct shipping; which is certainly more dear than the previous shipping that the Lost Art Press offered to Canada, but it’s up to me and if I want to pay, then I have the choice to do so. Besides… that costly shipping makes me really think about what I’m ordering, and if I’m going to shell out that hard earned cash, then I might as well max out my order to get the most bang for my shipping buck.
Can’t wait to receive the two books & chore coat up here in the North.
Kind regards,
James in Canada.
Thank you for giving us the option. All is very fair.
What about us mere mortals at AUS? Both local options Carbatec and Henry Eckert/Lie Nielsen Aus are significantly more expensive and carry a very limited range… Pre-ordering and getting PDFs with a physical is not an option for us either.
Shipping a single 6×9 book to Australia is about $65. So Lie-Nielsen and Carbatec (which import our book in containers) would always be much cheaper, I’m afraid.