Canadian shipping question

Astinus · Post by **Astinus** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:37 pm

Hello everyone

I'm new here. After finally being turned off DnD by the 4.0 announcement, I was thrilled to find C&C. I'm going to use it, along with Fantasy Grounds, to get my old AD&D buddies together again (we're scattered worldwide).

But to my question: I'm about to buy a bunch of books from the Troll Lords website and wanted to ask about shipping to Canada (Montreal). I'm pretty new to North America (I'm Australian) so I'm not exactly sure on how the shipping into Canada works.

Are significant duties charged when the books cross the border? Can I keep the duties down by ordering smaller purchases? I would order from Amazon, but they seem to be older printings. Anything else I should know about?

Thanks!

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:54 pm

If you ship via USPS (US Postal Service) you won't get charged the extra duties. If you ship via UPS (United Parcel Service) you'll pay the duties.

Wow, several C&Cers in Montreal!
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:01 pm

That's been a bit of an ongoing discussion...

First off... Welcome to the Crusade! I'm moving to Montreal myself in the next two weeks and you'll be happy to know there are some other Crusaders in the area.

Secondly, with ordering books from the States, you'll find that there are typically no extra charges on top of shipping. In fact, in all the years I've ordered books from the US, I've never run into that problem.

When you do order, make sure that you don't select a courier like UPS because they will charge a brokerage fee. However, most places will use the standard US Postal Service which falls into the hands of the Canadian Postal Service when it hits the border.

The one thing you'll need to keep in mind is the shipping from the US to Canada is more expensive.

At present, the shipping charges you see on the TLG page is for US customers only. I'm hoping that this might change soon and I know that TLG is working hard to spread C&C more into Canada than it already is.

However, I have emailed the company before and have gotten orders straight from them with a revised total for shipping. Others have called directly too.

One alternative I have found is Noble Knight Games:
http://www.nobleknight.com/

I tend to order my stuff from there, and they currently have the 3rd printing of the PHB in stock. They don't have the 2nd print M&T yet but that should be in within a couple of weeks (TLG is currently or on the verge of shipping it out to distributors).

Finally, there are a couple of places in Montreal where you can find some C&C stuff though I find ordering the new products quicker than waiting for them to come in store. But, for future reference, there's the Valet d'Coeur which is a big game store on St.Denis:
http://www.levalet.com/

There's another game store on Queen Mary that does games and has some C&C stuff... though the name of that store escapes me at the moment. Once I find it, I'll post back with the name... that is unless Jinx sees this and beats me to it.
Hope this helps!

Moriarty the Red
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:02 pm

Treebore wrote:
If you ship via USPS (US Postal Service) you won't get charged the extra duties. If you ship via UPS (United Parcel Service) you'll pay the duties.

Wow, several C&Cers in Montreal!

Yes... we're beginning to converge!

If the trend continues... we'll seriously have to consider a Canadian Troll Con!

M
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synabetic · Post by **synabetic** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:20 pm

Heh! I just called the good Trolls the other day to ask about shipping to Canadia (I'm just re-located to Victoria, BC, myself... any C&Cers here in this fine city?).

Must be Shipping to Canada week.
I'm new here, too. I discovered C&C via a 4th edition thread I was reading in my downtime (man, being sick REALLY makes me bored, you see... good thing, though).

Moriarty: Thanks much for the link to Noble Knight! They look pretty cool, and probably a good place to turn if my FLGS doesn't have what I'm looking for.

And to further the weirdness, I'm not new to N. America, like you, Astinus... but I'm new to Canada (like you)... and like you I'm setting up a Fantasy Grounds game, converting to play C&C from D&D with my old buddies from the US.

As far as what I was charged for shipping, the two main books (Player's Guide and M&T) ran me about 9 bucks (USD, I'm assuming). No extra charges, though I was told that it might take a bit longer what with customs (I think).

Anyhoo, good to be here. I think I'll wander over to the introductions thread in a bit, but I just thought I would sound off here first.

Post by **Breakdaddy** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:21 pm

Welcome to the forums and the C&C game! I hope you find a good group there in Montreal. You might get on SKYPE like a lot of us here on the forums and game up with some of the C&Cers from here.

Astinus · Post by **Astinus** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:29 pm

Wow. Thanks for the lightning fast response guys! From what I've seen, seems like a great community here.

I'll definitely check out all the links and make some orders.

moriarty777 wrote:
I'm moving to Montreal myself in the next two weeks and you'll be happy to know there are some other Crusaders in the area.

That's awesome news. I'm still pretty new to Montreal and yet to do any gaming here, so if opportunities arise for Crusading, I'm around and most definitely interested.

Thanks again.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:35 pm

slimykuotoun is also from Montreal, and I believe one or two others who have been on these boards are also from Montreal.
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:39 pm

synabetic wrote:
Heh! I just called the good Trolls the other day to ask about shipping to Canadia (I'm just re-located to Victoria, BC, myself... any C&Cers here in this fine city?).

Must be Shipping to Canada week.
I'm new here, too. I discovered C&C via a 4th edition thread I was reading in my downtime (man, being sick REALLY makes me bored, you see... good thing, though).

Moriarty: Thanks much for the link to Noble Knight! They look pretty cool, and probably a good place to turn if my FLGS doesn't have what I'm looking for.

Cool... welcome to the Great White North! I'm sure you'll enjoy living out west and I seem to remember at least one fellow crusader that lives out on your end. I'm sure you'll be able to find some people soon enough. As for Noble Knight Games, they are the ones I usually turn to if my LGS can't help me out and despite higher shipping costs, with the savings they give, the great exchange rate these days, and no tax, I find I typically break even.

synabetic wrote:
And to further the weirdness, I'm not new to N. America, like you, Astinus... but I'm new to Canada (like you)... and like you I'm setting up a Fantasy Grounds game, converting to play C&C from D&D with my old buddies from the US.

Awesome. There was a thread on the boards from not too long ago talking about Fantasy Grounds... they are actually putting a C&C set in place for it and everything. This is something I'll be looking at myself in the near future.

So welcome to the boards, welcome to the crusades, and don't be shy if you have any questions...

M
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:42 pm

Treebore wrote:
slimykuotoun is also from Montreal, and I believe one or two others who have been on these boards are also from Montreal.

Ya... Jynx and Metathiax are also in the Montreal region. Don't know who else is though.

M
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Astinus · Post by **Astinus** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:46 pm

Treebore wrote:
slimykuotoun is also from Montreal, and I believe one or two others who have been on these boards are also from Montreal.

That's very encouraging. Let me go so far as to say that anyone looking for a gamer in Montreal should feel free to email me. Do you have a group lined up in Montreal, moriarty777?

synabetic · Post by **synabetic** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:46 pm

Thanks for the welcome!
My wife is from this area originally, so we visited a bit beforehand in the last few years... so, it's not -that- much of a shock living here. Well, except for the cheese prices. And I love cheese. On the upside, bacon is more abundant and inexpensive.
Ah, yes, I found out about the C&C FG thing... I contacted the fellow at Digital Adventures (Kevin, if I recall correctly) and he said it should definitely be out in the next two weeks, if not sooner. I'm pretty jazzed about it... should be good stuff, that.

Astinus · Post by **Astinus** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:51 pm

synabetic wrote:
And to further the weirdness, I'm not new to N. America, like you, Astinus... but I'm new to Canada (like you)... and like you I'm setting up a Fantasy Grounds game, converting to play C&C from D&D with my old buddies from the US.

Some very strange parallels. Guess it just shows the demand out there for a game like C&C. Until recently I just didn't know it existed.

And to further the weird parallels, before moving to Montreal, my wife and I lived in Vancouver, but we always preferred Victoria. It's a great city. I envy you. And yup, I too am very excited about that Fantasy Grounds ruleset.

synabetic · Post by **synabetic** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 6:02 pm

Astinus wrote:
Some very strange parallels. Guess it just shows the demand out there for a game like C&C. Until recently I just didn't know it existed.

And to further the weird parallels, before moving to Montreal, my wife and I lived in Vancouver, but we always preferred Victoria. It's a great city. I envy you. And yup, I too am very excited about that Fantasy Grounds ruleset.

Yeah, I think demand went up when people mentioned C&C in those D&D 4th edition threads. Although I had kinda heard about the game, I hadn't checked it out until someone explained it a bit in one of those posts. I was like "Souped up old school? it doesn't suck? Hmmm... neat!".

Hey, Vancouver is a great city... If you dig bigger cities, that is. Victoria is nice and slow, complete with suicidal pedestrians (laid back to the point of never looking where they walk) and lots of old folks (thus the "suicidal" part for pedestrians). It's beautiful here, as I'm sure you know, with a pretty good lot living in the area. But yeah, I used to go to Van in my 20nothing days from Seattle... Always entertaining... but very busy and full of people.

Also, Victoria has a great nerd community. Gaming stores and comic shops abound.

I haven't been to Montreal in years. Fun place, though. And from the looks of it, lots of C&Cers!

moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 6:17 pm

Astinus wrote:
That's very encouraging. Let me go so far as to say that anyone looking for a gamer in Montreal should feel free to email me. Do you have a group lined up in Montreal, moriarty777?

I've got nothing lined up quite as yet. I'm currently surrounded by stacks of boxes and the first stage of the move is happening this Saturday. Largely, I'll be unpacking and settling in during September as well as finding some work.

I expect I'll be itching to play or get something going by sometime October and I'll have a better idea what's happening then. I figure I'll be posting something with regards to this a few weeks down the line.

M
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Emryys · Post by **Emryys** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 6:50 pm

Trying to spread the C&C crusade here in Vancouver ala 3E land...
Shipping to Canada, they can sometime charge you a "handling custom" of $5-10 as well as GST 6% tax... when and how this is applied... who knows
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:48 pm

Emryys wrote:
Trying to spread the C&C crusade here in Vancouver ala 3E land...
Shipping to Canada, they can sometime charge you a "handling custom" of $5-10 as well as GST 6% tax... when and how this is applied... who knows

Sounds like you got 'super-hosed' there! I guess I should really count myself lucky.

M
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Partner to Brave Halfling Publishing
http://www.arcanacreations.com

angelius · Post by **angelius** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:05 am

Always ordered directly from the trolls and not a single issue ever.
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jman5000 · Post by **jman5000** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:08 am

believe Skatharos is from Montreal - but I haven't seen him around the forums for a long while now...

Welcome fellow canuks, and people who live in canukistan... welcome to the crusades!!!

Cheers,

J.

gideon_thorne · Post by **gideon_thorne** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:18 am

I keep telling Steve that he'd have an easier time sending things northward if he'd stop spelling Canada C-Aye-N-Aye-D-Aye.
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Wasgo · Post by **Wasgo** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:11 am

Emryys wrote:
Trying to spread the C&C crusade here in Vancouver ala 3E land...
Shipping to Canada, they can sometime charge you a "handling custom" of $5-10 as well as GST 6% tax... when and how this is applied... who knows

If it's $5, it was sent via USPS through Canada Post. If it was more than that, it's not actually customs, it's a brokerage charge that comes from UPS, Fedex or whatever shipping company they used. That charge is for them filling out a form that takes literally 30 seconds and submitting it to Canada Post. It's a pure scam. If you have the time, you can actually refused their brokerage and submit the form yourself, but it's such a hassle I never do.

As for why they charge the actual custom fees, I believe they have a complex set of rules for when they do or don't charge them. I don't believe the employees that make the decision of whether to charge or not actually know those rules. I've never been able to figure it out, and I've had friends that work for Canada Post.

Also, I like living in Vancouver, but I can't say I know the role-playing scene here at all. When I've played C&C in the past, it's just been with friends. Do you actually have a regular game going?

Emryys · Post by **Emryys** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:41 am

Wasgo wrote:
Do you actually have a regular game going?

NATM
My work precludes regular meeting.. (shift work) So it's been mostly board games as of late.

If it's RPG's, it's online in oneshots or other peoples games... so I may have to start a C&C GRiP game...

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spak_man · Post by **spak_man** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:28 pm

Yet another montrealer here Treebor had mentioned there were a couple others from Montreal around here.

As for shipping, like the others have said, most couriers charge a brokerage fee, (UPS is especially bad) but if you get your stuff shipped USPS, you should be good. So far I haven't had to pay any duties or brokerage fees on my online purchases.

-Andre