Do Canadians use Amazon?

[JustLurkin]

Or is there a different company used?

I usually look at the top 100 free Kindle books on Amazon US, Amazon UK and Amazon Canada each day.  The Canadian site rarely has customer reviews for the books.  There was book on the Canada list last night that looked interesting, but had no reviews.  When I pulled it up on the US site there were almost 600 reviews.  Just wonder why there's such a difference.

[swamp]

Yes they do. And they have the orders shipped to UPS stores on the border to save international shipping costs.

[sunshinegal1981]

As a Canadian now living in the USA, I can attest that for most Canadians, the shipping costs make online shopping much less accessible.  Free shipping is virtually unheard of.

When I first moved to NY, I immediately went on an online shopping binge.  You mean I can sit here in my jammies, surf the web, and three days later a nice man will show up at my door with boxloads of my stuff, at NO COST??  It's absolutely magical.   :-)

(And don't even get me started on the "free shipping BOTH WAYS" concept, where I can also do free returns if the item is not as awesome as I had hoped.   Zappos.com was my gateway drug.)

[justme]

Jan 19, 2014 14:09:13 GMT -5 sunshinegal1981 said:

As a Canadian now living in the USA, I can attest that for most Canadians, the shipping costs make online shopping much less accessible.  Free shipping is virtually unheard of.

When I first moved to NY, I immediately went on an online shopping binge.  You mean I can sit here in my jammies, surf the web, and three days later a nice man will show up at my door with boxloads of my stuff, at NO COST??  It's absolutely magical.   :-)

(And don't even get me started on the "free shipping BOTH WAYS" concept, where I can also do free returns if the item is not as awesome as I had hoped.   Zappos.com was my gateway drug.)

Ahhh - they gave me VIP with Zappos and now I can get stuff the next day for free! And I get a year to return it if I don't use it? I have to keep myself from going on there a lot.

[sunshinegal1981]

Jan 19, 2014 14:12:58 GMT -5 justme said:

Ahhh - they gave me VIP with Zappos and now I can get stuff the next day for free! And I get a year to return it if I don't use it? I have to keep myself from going on there a lot.

OMG me too!!!     Ok, stop it... you're giving me palpitations.  

[JustLurkin]

Yea, it's the amazon.ca site that has a very low number of customer reviews.    I had just assumed they had warehouses in Canada, didn't know all that about shipping rates!

[Sunnyday]

and amazon Canada has nothing when you compare it to the USA version.

Shopping in Canada sucks! And the stupid Canadians don't even complain! there are so few choices, that they just suck it up and pay high costs or wait to go on a shopping spree to their neighbors to the south or their neighbors south of the border as they like to call us. No one apparently told them that we are their only neighbors, so the qualifier "Southern, South" are completely pointless. And if you really want to get technical, Alaska borders them on the northwest, so we are also their Northern neighbors.

This is such a sore sore point with me! Shopping in Canada. Rant over.



eta: I miss zappos so much! they tried to make a go of it in Canada, but they skedaddled right out of this vast barren land because they realized they couldn't offer the high level of service in the land of maple syrup and poutine as they do in the land of the Stars and Stripes.

[violagirl]

Population of Canada: 34.8 Million
Population of US: 313.9 Million

Obviously sheer economics of scale is going to weigh against Canadian shoppers for selection and price. Plus we have some pretty heavy tariffs on goods shipped in. Good thing they lifted the excise tax on hockey pants.   Seriously, they did. 

While our dollar has been falling against US currency, it can still be advantageous to use Amazon.com over Amazon.ca because book prices are much cheaper in the US. Generally though the cost of shipping is just enough to even it out. 

People complain, but generally we are more whiney about the weather. 

[swamp]

How close do you live from the border? The UPS store here does a huge business from Canadians shopping on line and having the items delivered there instead.

[justme]

The problem with Canadian stores is they haven't reset prices to account for the fact that US$ and Can$ are almost on par. So the dollars spent are almost equal, but the exact same item in Canada is probably 10-20% more and you have to add in 15% sales tax.

When the exchange rate was really good it was a good deal to buy clothes up there at $32.99 even though it's $29.99 in the states. The difference in price is still there for a lot of items and it now makes it a bad idea to buy in Canada if you can get it from the states.

Well, unless you go up to cottage country at the end of August. Then you can really clean up on some amazing deals.  I got around $400 worth of clothes/accessories for $100 this past summer and since I live in Florida could wear it for another 2+ months when I got back and then start wearing again in Feb or March.

[Sunnyday]

Jan 21, 2014 10:33:04 GMT -5 swamp said:

How close do you live from the border? The UPS store here does a huge business from Canadians shopping on line and having the items delivered there instead.

I don't know if you were talking to me, but I am close to the border, but everything we border is pretty rural.

I think the closet "big" city might be Syracuse. We thought that we might go down soon, because we've been told that they have good BBQ (for a Northern city, that is).

But the point of something like zappos is that you order two sizes of shoes, and keep the one that fits and send the other one back. Or heck, send all of them back if it doesn't suit you. I won't be able to do that if I have to drive 2 hours to return shoes. Defeats the whole point of online shopping for me.

Good BBQ and good Mexican food are also things that I miss about the States. Sometimes, I think I miss home.