In article ,
Jack Fearnley wrote:
Perhaps Canadian readers will be interested in my recent experience.

I ordered some stuff from Woodsmith costing $42.90US and they were about to
charge me $21.49US for handling and shipping via UPS. I felt this was
excessive (50% of the value of the order) so I asked them to ship it USPS
instead. They agreed and said the charge would be $16.25US. I found this
still to be expensive but I agreed to the price.

I received the package today with a charge of $12.94CAN. This is $3.70
Federal Sales Tax plus $4.24 Provincial Sales Tax plus --- wait for it ---
$5.00 service charge!!

So now I have paid $16.25US plus $12.94CAN via the postal service versus
$21.49US for UPS. I don't know if there would have been additional charges
by UPS (taxes etc). Perhaps someone can enlighten me on that point.

IIRC, UPS 'brokerage fee' (the equivalent to that Canada Post $5 service
charge) *starts* at $35.

shipped by UPS you would have been out the US$21.49, plus the CAN$3.70,
plus the CAN$4.24 *PLUS* (at least) CAN$35.