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I run a small on-line retail store in the US and have a TON of requests to ship to Canada. How do I go about calculating the taxes and tariffs prior to shipping. When I called and talked to Fed-Ex they said they can't estimate them prior to shipping I would have to wait until the package got to Canada and then they would bill me. It is really hard for me to determine how much to charge on shipping when I can't estimate. I use a combination of USPS, Fed-Ex and UPS.

I also was trying to figure out the codes I am supposed to use for shipping orders into the country which are asked for on the USPS customs forms and couldn't find them.

Thanks for any guidance.

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If you are not planning on being in the business of international logisitics -- but you are going to continue to be in the business of your online retail store -- then outsource this function to someone who does it. – Joseph Barisonzi Jun 9 '11 at 19:26

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You can't determine the duties and taxes. You can make a rough estimation. Amazon.com does it. This is an advanced feature.

A simple solution would be to ask the shipping company handle it and customer pay for the imports.

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