Zappos to stop shipping to Canada
veni, vidi, Visa
Mar 24th, 2011 2:26 pm
Mar 25th, 2011 8:26 am
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Shoe+retai ... z1Hc6XitkGPopular online shoe retailer Zappos.com says it is pulling out of Canada because of high brokerage fees and confusing cross-border shipping policies.
“We have struggled with general uncertainty and unpredictability of delivering orders to our Canadian customers given customs and other logistics constraints,” Zappos chief financial officer Chris Nielsen said in a memo posted on the company’s website.
“We have made the difficult decision to shut down the canada.zappos.com site and stop shipping to Canada.”
Zappos, which will end Canadian sales April 1, said confusing distribution agreements that limit the brands of shoes Zappos can sell in Canada also contributed to its decision.
Contacted Thursday, the company refused to offer further comment.
Zappos, founded in 1999, quickly became the go-to place for shoe lovers to get bargain basement prices on their favourite brands of footwear. The company hit $1 billion U.S. in annual sales by 2008.
Mar 25th, 2011 8:30 am
Mar 25th, 2011 9:29 am
OTOH, Some US vendors are taking the opposite approach, e.g. LL Bean: Announcing FREE SHIPPING to Canada
Mar 25th, 2011 5:59 pm
Still sucks tho that we have one less option. I never shopped there (umm...I'm wearing shoes I bought at the supermarket) but it's this type of retail bunk we need to work out along with stuff like being able to sub to Dish Network etc.
Mar 25th, 2011 6:05 pm
Mar 25th, 2011 7:19 pm
I despise Unmitigated Pond Scum as much as anyone for the rapacious brokerage fees they charge. But what I don't understand about Zappos' decision is why they don't do what their parent Amazon, as well as other large retailers like Newegg, LL Bean, Eddie Bauer, etc. do: enter into an arrangement with CBSA so that all sales to Canadian addresses are preprocessed, prepaid and precleared before they get to Canada. That way Canadian customers know up-front how much an item will cost them, delivered to their door and they know that those items won't be delayed for excessive time periods at the border. That option works. It even works when UPS provides the shipping/brokerage services. Why don't more large US sellers use it?
Mar 26th, 2011 8:33 am
Mar 26th, 2011 9:31 am
Canada Post performs the same "service" for $5, presumably at break-even if not at a profit, so your beef isn't with NAFTA or cross-border bureaucracy but rather with UPS' rapacious brokerage fees.
I asked the same question in the post above yours. But again, Zappos' decision seems to have little to do with NAFTA and government bureaucracy because a good solution not only exists but is being used effectively by their parent company.What's most unusual about this story IMHO, is why Zappo's isn't integrated into its AMAZON parent's highly efficient e-commerce infrastructure.
Mar 26th, 2011 1:23 pm
Mar 26th, 2011 1:47 pm
Mar 26th, 2011 4:28 pm
But even if the duty was small, the hassles involved in collection and brokerage, in both directions plus as you say, at both borders for returns (with Canada Customs on the way out to refund the HST plus duties and then with US Customs on the way in to avoid the 10%), would seriously impact the business viability.woof wrote: ↑From what I recall the duty on footwear from outside N. America runs at about 16 -18% and then GST/PST are on top of that. I wouldn't call that a small amount. Footwear and clothing are, I believe, amongst the last remaining high duty items. They are the worst items that you would want to build a cross border business on because of this. Returns to the US would be a big hassle because I believe the US itself has a 10% duty on such footwear so returns have to be properly cleared to avoid getting snagged by this.
Mar 27th, 2011 1:07 am
bylo wrote: ↑Canada Post performs the same "service" for $5, presumably at break-even if not at a profit, so your beef isn't with NAFTA or cross-border bureaucracy but rather with UPS' rapacious brokerage fees.
I asked the same question in the post above yours. But again, Zappos' decision seems to have little to do with NAFTA and government bureaucracy because a good solution not only exists but is being used effectively by their parent company.
I suspect that there's more at play here. Consider for example that Zappos sells only shoes. Buying shoes online that fit properly is difficult to do. Shoes also tend to be bought based on style which is also difficult to assess online. To encourage online purchases Zappos offers very generous return policies including free return shipping. Returning items to the US creates additional complexities because the customers want to make sure that they're credited the HST and duty they've already paid (or not charged it again on the replacement shipment.) It seems to me that selling shoes across borders simply may not make much business sense, especially with Zappos' high level of customer service.
So perhaps (a) Zappos realized that their business model simply isn't viable across borders, (b) they didn't want to spend the cost of building domestic Canadian infrastructure to find out if they could make it viable and (c) by suggesting that the reason for quitting Canada is our bureaucracy they can bow out more gracefully than if they acknowledged the real reason.
(Note: this is only my speculation. But it makes more sense than blaming everything on NAFTA and/or bureaucracy.)
Mar 27th, 2011 9:08 am
Your point?Bookpreviews wrote: ↑Zappos also sells clothing,jewlery,cosmetics- so not only shoes.
Mar 28th, 2011 6:34 pm
Mar 29th, 2011 7:03 am
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