Customs fees

I apologize if this is not the appropriate place for this. Admin, please delete at your discretion. I had a question about customs fees and was hoping someone here might know the answer. I recently sold a shipment of DVD's to a customer in Canada and shipped them from the U.S. via UPS. They delivered the package to him but wouldn't release it to him until he paid some type of customs fees which amounted to more than half of the price of his DVD's. I read that this is somewhat of a normal occurrence. So my question is, what determines if an international shipment gets hit with these fees? Is it completely random? I have temporarily disabled international shipping (besides Canada)until I can get a definitive answer to be able to answer my customers questions.

Thank You for your time!!

Hi alymars,

All imports into Canada by mail are technically charged Customs duties if they are valued over $20, or over $60 if marked as a gift.
Because Customs check mail randomly, it's possible that some shipments would slip through without being charged, which is why not all packages will get charged.

See here for more info:
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Basically, you can either:
(a) Place a note in your listing saying customers are responsible for all customs duties (and GST also applies in Canada too on imports).
OR
(b) Some sellers send packages as 'gifts', although this is NOT legal.

How much duty is charged depends on the classification of the goods you are sending. It's best to ring Customs to find out how DVDs and your other merchandise is classified. The code will then tell you the percentage of duty charged.
Hope that helps :)

More reading:

How to Determine Customs Value for Duty
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I should also add that the same goes for most other countries. Most countries will have a limit on the value that can be imported before duties apply. Duties will vary from country to country.

Yes, your correct, I also sell bobdybuilding supplements, I only pay customs duty when I prder over $150 of stock, I can order several single boxes without any cost to me, but if I order 2 boxes delivered together I get hit with customs duty - so what I do is order sinlge boxes with a day free between each order - this avoids customs payment.