Hi David how is it going?

Was just on your site, and noticed a ProspectHD trial demo DVD. Big fans of Aspect and we do like to push quality to the max, bringing our excellent AspectHD footage into AE after our cuts are made in PPro. We CC and render out to uncompressed. We use 720p so it is managable compared to 1080i. It still takes a lot of space, so your trial is very tempting as we might make the switch up. So I go through the steps for the free trail, which states shipping will be paid by us. Fair enough. When the calculation came up I almost fell off my chair. $85 USD. Are you guy's kidding? I'm in Canada, you know that big country that is directly attached above you. What is going on here. I'm not in Madagascar for pete's sake. Your shipping calculation engine makes it appear I am. If anything I should be at max $5 more then the US shipping. I am a big fan of your products and have been a huge backer of Cineform on every forum I belong to. Your shipping rates are honestly insulting for anyone with intelligence.
For fun I typed in what it would cost if I lived in Alaska. For your info I am 1 hour from the US boarder, as are most Canadians. Alaska is very very far away from me. Guess what it costs for shipping to Alaska? $23.66 USD. Hmmm, that makes sense. Can you please show your current and potential customers some respect and realize that your second largest (recently first) trading partner isn't on the other side of the world, and in being so does not deserve to have its shipping rates lumped into those countries that are. Unless you are personally pocketing $60 (which you deserve for all of your hard work) per trial disk shipped to Canada, I hope you can correct this huge mistake in your companies business model. Stop insulting Canadians, and do some future business with your big fans to the north.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Ken Hodson
Rain Shadow productions

PS: Just checked out what it would cost to ship to Austrailia. $86.51. I am sorry I seem so angery, but I am. So many US companies make this same mistake and are essentially throwing away a market with the population of California with a rediculous over charge of shipping.

Ken old chap; chill!

Your tone…may I suggest…is insulting to Canadians, especially us Canadians living in Mexico!

Maybe we ship to Canada via my home county (Australia), or some other Commonwealth partner. :)

News Flash : Commonwealth Games score Australia 46 Gold, Canada 7. ;)

Plus we don't handle the shipping that is done via our fullfillment house -- I guess they hate Canadians. I'll pass your message along.

David

What a cool idea! I’m originally from New Zealand so I’m a commonwealth member, remember, right and proper, so ship through me, David, and together we’ll take Vancouver BC!

Ken old chap, the price just went up a tad!

Probably duty and import stuff in there maybe also…

Ken,

At least there were some replies with a bit of a sense of humor to this frustrating situation. I also realize that of course your discovery is nonsensical. I would be as angry as you if I felt somebody was trying to gouge me too. But we're not trying to do this...and the money is not going to us - it's going to the shipping company.

I'm not sure why this is happening. Shipping charges are added automatically using a real-time gateway between the shipper (UPS/Fedex) and the ecommerce provider that we use. We cannot set, nor do we have individual control of rates to different countries. Now if I could set rates to Canada.... :-)

So, having offered some background, let me look into this a bit further tomorrow. I've been frustrated with international shipping charges in the past, but this of course is nothing but silly. I'll post something back to this thread after I look into it....

David.

Ken old chap; chill!

Your tone…may I suggest…is insulting to Canadians, especially us Canadians living in Mexico!

Real Canadians don't live in Mexico. We only visit to rent the Tequilla and sunshine.

Ken mate, us real New Zealand Canadians down here don’t rent tequila and sunshine; we consume it holus bolus, in copious quantities, and you are right to give those Californian Australians the one two over that pricing nonsense.

It is a great product though, eh!

Us real New Zealand temprorary American's think that you confused New Zealand and Australian Canadians should just accept that you've migrated too far North. No penguins at the North Pole, mate! Come south to where the shippin' is cheap! (But bring decent beer with you please)

The notion that Canadians make good beer is a falacy. Apart from some stunningly good labels that foam to the top out of the micros, the world leader is still Ireland.

Pass me a Smithwicks.

I seriously doubt that the gouging issue lies at CineForm's shipping contractor. Most likely it's a Canadian customs thing. Canada is one of the single worst countries to ship anything to because of their medieval customs laws. A friend of mine runs his own mail center in my town; I've shipped stuff all over the world through him for several years. He's the most knowledgable fellow about mail and shipping that I've ever met, and his words of wisdom to me when I first started doing business with him, was to avoid shipping to Canada (and Japan) if at all possible.

Ken is right to complain, but it's not a CineForm problem or their shipping contractor's problem. It's a Canadian customs problem. Put the blame where it belongs, at least.

(The original thread title, "CineForm hates Canadians" was a little too inflammatory for my blood, not to mention being not at all fair to CineForm. I happen to know for a fact that CineForm loves everybody. Thread title changed to a much more accurate description, "Canadian Shipping Charges." Thanks.)

Chris is correct in his defence of the aforementioned supplier. The big 3 shippers have oppressive "duty prep " fees that make small shipments quite un-profitable. The actual amount charged by Canada Customs is small. The inbound taxes are also added but that is on the declared value of the goods and has nothing to do with freight expense. NAFTA is still in place, but our government is as always collecting the GST and PST on inbound taxable merchandise. Unless it's a bona fide gift.

If a shipment is exported through the USPS, the duty "fee" on small packages arriving here is only about 5 bucks. The shipping amount is similar that one would pay for Fedex et al to ship a domestic package within the USA a similar distance.

Now as for our strong dollar in terms of cross border trade, this has had a recent impact on USA exports here, but that is another story altogether.

You know, shipping a package from 92009 to Canada isn't that bad, via the ever reliable USPS delivery.

http://ircalc.usps.gov/intl_speed.asp?CID=10054&MailType=envelope&Pounds=1&Ounces=5

the link shows the cost of mailing something to canada at a 1.5 ounce rate. It's a heck of a lot cheaper. Ask your local USPS about Business Connect service and they could help you out with setting something up for more efficient delivery at a cheaper price throughout the US, international, and even, gasp, delivery to Ken in Canada.

The rate is what I got from the link above.

Global Express Guaranteed® Document Service
See Service Guide Before Mailing 2 - 3 Days $40.00
Global Express Guaranteed® Non-Document Service
See Service Guide Before Mailing 2 - 3 Days Calculate
Global Express Mail™ (EMS) 3 - 5 Days $17.90
Global Priority Mail - Flat-rate Envelope (Large) 4 - 6 Days $7.50
Global Priority Mail - Flat-rate Envelope (Small) 4 - 6 Days $4.25
Global Priority Mail - Variable Weight (Single) 4 - 6 Days $9.50
Airmail Letter Post 4 - 7 Days $5.30
Economy (Surface) Letter Post 4 - 6 Weeks $4.80

Yes, I work for USPS, and yes this is going Postal in a positive way.