Just had a lovely 3lektronaut send me a few pieces of used kit, zero original packaging, manuals or anything, some covered in stickers, from the US to Canada. The cost was wildly reasonable. After shipping, I mean the cost to ship, the brokerage and customs fees, the price quite literally doubled.
I want to ship a few more pieces of gear, but a 100% fee is so fucking hilariously stupid.
Wondering if anyone else out there had the same experience?
e: it’s a movie quote. manque pas le truc.
Mind boggling is the appropriate term, for what it’s worth. Mind bottling is a technique long banned under the Geneva conventions.
“America First” fascist isolationism at work. Hopefully the nightmare will be over soon.
Just got this email from GUPtech, an indie pedal maker I like who are based in Canada:
I feel really bad for boutique companies like this. They just lost access to a huge number of customers.
Oh it’s not just shipping to/from Canada. Getting anything internationally in or out of the USA has been terrible for a while but it’s about to get extremely bad.
Looks like it’s time to start smuggling gear!
I bought something on Reverb from Canada a couple of weeks ago and it just arrived, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to make it. Say goodbye to buying anything on reverb, ebay, or etsy from the UK, Germany, France, Japan, Sweden, and lots of other places for who knows how long. At least months it sounds like.
I’m Canadian but I’ve gotten similar emails from Supercool and Montreal Assembly — all of this is especially hard on smaller businesses, who rely on actual revenue to pay their bills. And most Canadian companies can’t survive by exclusively selling to Canadians. As far as how it affects companies shipping from the US to Canada, I haven’t heard the same outcry but I can’t imagine they’re doing better than they were before. I wanted a Chase Bliss Lost + Found last month but didn’t want to risk ordering it due to counter-tariffs. I don’t even know if they would apply! I don’t actually understand how any of this works!
I find it absolutely amazing how quickly free trade switched from “a mainstream conservative ideal that mainstream liberals complained about” to “a mainstream conservative complaint that mainstream liberals idealize.” But with that said, I’m EXTREMELY grateful that the only war I have to survive right now is a first-world trade war.
Pretty sure the Greek philistine of the homo habillis epoch coined the term, followed swiftly by “I’m stuck in a glass case of emotion” whilst making a phone call.
That savant’s name, Im-Ron Burgandy
I’ll be on Vancouver Island and in Vancouver proper from the 14th to the 22nd if anyone needs anything 
If you’re coming from NY state I’ve got my eyes on an Orchid
pray for chicken tacos
Looking forward to the future episode of Border Patrol.
Officer to camera: he says he needs all this stuff for a ball less jam.
Speaking of bottling.
Love the energy to the north! Too many people been bending a knee to the Pumpkin Spiced Pedo. Gonna go get a nice bottle of Canadian whiskey for the Labor Day weekend.
That’s a pretty jarring experience OP
Sincerely though, I’m bummed that you got hit with such a steep bill, all of stupid barriers are being thrown up between musicians and other artists who are just trying to help each other out
Other relevant ongoing discussions on Elektronauts:
US tariffs made it worse, but shipping got so complicated and customs (at least here in Germany) got so greedy…
To ship outside EU (which Germany is a part of), you have to fill out custom declarations. If the value is 1000€ or more, you have to go through a process which is called (translated) “Double Customs Process”. For this, you cannot fill out your declaration yourself, but you have to hire a company which is licensed to do so. Hiring this company alone can cost hundreds.
Receiving packages, the customs nowadays know quite well the values. If you pick up your parcel there, they want to see a proof of money transfer, force you to copy your paypal etc payment. If the sender declared a lower value, you risk to pay a high fee for “tax fraud”.
And of course, you have to pay VAT for the instrument in the sellers country (if new instrument) and again as “import tax” in the EU. And not only on the instrument but also on shipping. Also twice, there and here.
Holy shit. Das ist ein sheis frustruck.
PostNL has stopped sending any package to the US from the 23/08 and onwards because nobodies have an idea on how to deal with the current mess.
