Sending toys to kids in Canada

[asha]

A friend of mine (here in California) has some relatives in Canada. She wants to send the kids a couple of bikes with training wheels as christmas gifts. She could not locate the particular item on TRU canada website and does not know any other toy retailer in Canada.
So, her only choice seems to be to ship these bikes to Canada and the shipping fee is pretty high.

I was wondering what are the options for people in such situations. Are there any popular online toy retailers in Canada for her to order from? Is there any way she can avoid the huge shipping fee?

Thanks in advance ladies.

[Piglet]

Which bike is she looking for? She might be best off looking at the city's Yellow Pages for bike shops. The other store that carries bikes Sport Chek. If she wants a Kettler, she needs to look up specialty toy stores in that particular city. With more info, I bet someone here could help out (i.e. city she is shipping to, type of bike, etc.).

[bubbaray]

Shipping fees shouldn't be her only concern.

Firstly, if she ships via any courier co (FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc.), they will charge a $50 brokerage fee on top of their shipping fees just to walk the paperwork across the border.

Then, either she or the recipients will have to pay customs duties and taxes. Only gifts under $20 are "duty & tax" free. All others are assessed D&T on the assessed value of the goods (not necessarily the declared value -- the customs people check out the "real" value).

All of the above is ontop of the crazy fees just for the shipping portion.

Honestly, IMO, she is crazy to try to ship bikes from the US to Canada, especially as gifts. She'd be better off trying to find a Canadian retailer (not necessarily online, but a B&M store) and do it that way.

JMHO.

Melissa

DD#1: 04/2004

DD#2: c/s 01/2007

[torontomom]

deleted...

[hipmaman]

Or be practical and buy them gift certificates at TRU, Sport Chek, Sport Mart, etc. or send money/cheque and ask mom and dad to pick out a couple of bikes for them.

I wouldn't ship bikes to Canada as they can be costly with shipping, duties, brokerage fees, etc. and they are not something that cannot be found in Canada, kwim?

What model/brand is she thinking of buying? If it's like the Kettrikes, there are toys/baby boutiques that carry them, but not at TRU and such.