UrS4boy

See below. Try Kris at VM Autohaus in Burnaby - good pricing and no importation hassles.

SilberUrS6

I've never had a problem.

My first order was for door-bottom trim, the four big strips. I asked specifically if they would ship them flat. The guy was surprised, but said yes - and they didn't charge me any extra.

They've been fast and accurate, IME. Of course, now that I've said that, my next order will be borked.

dtompsett

doing a custom suspension on the 90q using UrS4 front struts...
4 x bilstein sports @ 115.95 ea
$65 shipping
Shipped DHL (flatrate $8 brokerage, but watch, they will nail you with a residential delivery fee, and a 'remote location' delivery fee if you live in the country... I changed my address to have them shipped to my office)

Not sure what the final taxes/duties are... but I still figure I saved $70 buying from the US. Lowest cdn price I was quoted was $179.99, from several distributors.

Pete@ECSTuning

and while we are working on alternative shipping methods, UPS is the only option available at this time. Unfortunately we have no control of the brokerage fees UPS decides to charge, so we can understand your frustration as we've heard the fees can become quite extensive.

We've tried USPS in the past and unfortunately the tracking information they provide is less than desirable and delivery times can sometimes be extremely lengthy. We've had packages lost in the past with no way of tracking them, finding them or knowing if they will ever be delivered.

We have even had packages not be delivered to the customer and show back up here at our warehouse 8 months later... It's not that every USPS delivery is troublesome but overall there have been many issues.

SilberUrS6

But when a customer *specifically requests* a shipping method, it seems to me that as long as you're up front about past problems, then the customer is the one that assumes the risk, and should be willing to purchase insurance and any other thing necessary to cover everyones' tails all around.

Sometimes, customer service isn't about what's most convenient for *you*, but what works best for the customer.

But hey, what do I know? We're just a small business here, and we don't turn down any special requests unless they are impossible. Of course, difficult requests cost the customers more money. But that's totally up-front.

Jonny K

Yeah, I can't see how my personal choice of shipping should bother ECS, regardless of the outcome.

- GT Style -

<ul><li><a href="http://www.usps.com/shipping/trackandconfirm.htm">http://www.usps.com/shipping/trackandconfirm.htm</a</li></ul>

SilberUrS6

They have a routine, and a way of doing things that's easy *for them*. OK, so there's got to be a line drawn somewhere - if 15 different customers ask for 10 different ways of shipping, then I can see how that would be a hassle in the warehouse, and it would cause the cost of operations to go up, along with the potential for mistakes. That's bad for business. But in this case, USPS is a major shipper. And to Canada, USPS can be a much better choice than UPS or FedEx.

I *do* understand the objection they have with doing it - I just don't agree with throwing away a $1300 sale over it. Even the biggest of companies has to find some flexibility sometimes - and the smaller you are, the more flexible you have to be.

Finally, here's the most funny thing about all this - I've had so many more problems with UPS over the years, as compared to the USPS - especially when it comes to lost or damaged packages. Almost everything I ship now is via USPS or FedEx. But I may start giving DHL a whirl - their rates look pretty decent.

Pete@ECSTuning

USPS has not been able to provide us with this service so we choose not to use them as a shipping provider.

I'm sure customers would be just as upset even if they told us to ship USPS and their packages didn't arrive on time or at all, someone is still responsible and that someone is ultimately us.

We do apologize that we were not able to ship your desired method.

- GT Style -

Even if you don't want to ship USPS, there should be an alternative to UPS for Canada.
It's common knowledge how horrible UPS is to Canada, why elimante a large potential marktet?
At least offer an alternative to UPS that you research to be better in your opinion than USPS.