I'm curious about Canadian people's experience of buying Elinchrom gear from a store in the U.S. such as B&H. Did you have to pay huge import duty fees because your items were manufactured in Switzerland? I recall buying a small Elinchrom umbrella and they charged me a good 15$ of duty fees and taxes.. for a 30$ item.
I'm about to buy a Rotalux Deep Throat and I'm very worried about how much customs are going to charge me... Does anyone know ?
I would buy it in Canada, but Vistek is the only Elinchrom distributor, and they are out of the deep throats until late december.
Too bad Vistek is out of stock. I just received a Rolalux 100x100cm from them.
New and used photo equipment should come in from the States duty free, regardless of where it's made. In fact, I've never paid duty on any new or used photo gear coming into Canada from anywhere in the world. Are you sure that $15 was for duty and tax? It's more likely to be "handling fees" and tax. Most shippers have a minimum handling fee of about $10 (US). Some of this fee may go to Canada Border Services, but probably not much.
The chances of having to pay sales tax and a handling fee depends to a large extent on how it is shipped. If it comes by UPS or FedEx courier service, then you will definitely pay both of these charges; the sales tax depends on your province, and the fee depends on the shipper. In the past, FedEx had more reasonable fees than UPS (about $10 vs. $30+ on a $100 to $200 order), but I think UPS recently reduced their fees - I know they have lower fees for express, but the express service is more expensive, of course.
I always try to have my stuff sent from the States using USPS (US Postal Service). In general, you don't get charged tax or handling fees at all for orders below about $250. Recently, I've received a shipment from Europe with a significantly higher declared value, and had no extra charges (I think it depends on who is sorting and how they feel today). From the States, I prefer USPS Priority Mail International, and I use Express Mail International for high value shipments. I ordered some stuff today from B&H, and selected USPS shipping over UPS Ground, even though it was a few dollars more for USPS - I expect it'll cost less in the long run.
FedEx recently introduced a new shipping service called "Federal Express Mail Service", that uses Canada Post to deliver at this end. I have a package on the way from KEH at the moment using this service, and I expect that I won't have to pay any extra charges for it.
